


my reputation's never been worse (so you must like me for me)

by safeandsound13



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Forgiveness, Happy Ending, John Tucker Must Die AU, Longing, Mention of past relationships, Modern AU, Pining, Yearning, alive bellamy, also tw for slutshaming, although loosely lmao, bellamy believes in pussy power tho dont worry, but make it only one of them knows, cant believe i have to tag that now..chile.., i dont have to tag feminist bellamy bc, idk they have problems and what not, in canon hes literally our feminist king, like really petty, our favorite bellamy, petty bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:54:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26616283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safeandsound13/pseuds/safeandsound13
Summary: Bellamy has to stress that he's very poor. Otherwise he obviously never would've helped three strangers take revenge on their ex by pretending to date her so he could eventually break her heart. He’s doing the world a favor, knocking the campus’ residential fuckboy down a peg. She probably doesn’t even have a heart to break. Like,seriouslypoor. All of that naturally backfired, considering he's very much in love with Clarke Griffin.Or, Clarke Griffin Must Die.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, and literally no one else lmao!, fuck yall youre boring!
Comments: 122
Kudos: 442





	my reputation's never been worse (so you must like me for me)

**Author's Note:**

> the personal degradation every time a03 asks me "fandom:" and i have to type in the 100.... the fact im even still here is self-flagellation at this point. anyway nobody mention this fucking show to me, its dead. clarke and bellamy are ours now and if jason smellyberg got something to say about he can come speak to me and i'll beat his ugly ass
> 
> big thanks to brooke for being my graphic designer<3 and to meha for absolutely nothing<3

* * *

"Fuck off."

"That's no way to talk for the dean’s Goddaughter," Bellamy says, dry, tilting his head back just an inch to blink at her in surprise. Not his initial guess at what her reaction would be once he quietly cleared his throat to get her attention, ready to go full charm. 

She barely looks up long enough from her textbook to glare at him, but it’s long enough for him to register the heat behind it. 

Despite his better judgement, Bellamy sits down in the chair across from her -- he’s _intrigued_ now -- leaning back lazily as he takes her in. The neatly organized flashcards, the different colored highlighters methodically lined up, the tight braid not so much falling down her shoulder as being allowed to. She’s pretty enough, but looks kind of high-strung. 

Frankly, Bellamy doesn't really get how she got three people who were previously strangers to each other heated enough to collectively band together and pay an actual stranger to start a one-sided, fake relationship with her. 

(It started off like a bad joke. The university’s resident goth president of half the clubs in school, the happy-go-fuckboy scholarship jock and the art department’s hippie nude model walk into the library… 

Except, they walked up to _him_ , whispering conspiratorially under their breaths while elbowing each other and sending him wary glances. 

Any other fucking day and Bellamy would’ve rolled his eyes and made himself busy shelving returned books until they’d gotten the hint and left him the hell alone. It’s not like he thought of himself as above college students and their petty drama, but he definitely considered himself a better person than every single one of them. Yet with midterms ending a week ago and many a student being more privy to getting completely shitfaced than wasting away their time in the library, temptation lurked in the shadows of his boredom. 

It was a strange trio to behold for any mortal man, especially considering the weird awkward silence that wrapped around the four of them. It caused Bellamy to release them from their misery, locking the screen of his crappy five-year old iPhone model and arching a brow into their general direction as if to say ‘go on’.

He repeats, it was a slow day. And it had to be more interesting than his sister live-texting him her most recent bowel movements (yes, there’s some boundary issues, and no, he doesn’t care). And _definitely_ not as boring as having to watch Miller badly hiding shit-eating grins and Instagramming his boyfriend Shakespeare sonnets for another three hours. 

Also, he’s so fucking poor. Like, he cannot stress enough how fucking poor he is. One rent notice away from being homeless, poor. 

The blonde spoke up first, a colorful scarf woven through her braided hair. Her smile was genuine enough, eyes crinkling at the sides. “We need your help.”

Bellamy threw his thumb over his shoulder, up the stairs, already reaching for his phone. “Psych section is on the third floor.”

“ _Not_ ,” the captain of the swim team inserted, a little heated before collecting himself, flicking his floppy brown hair from his eyes. How long hair helped him win swim meets in any way was a mystery to Bellamy. His eyes flit around the room, paranoid, or nervous, maybe both. “Not library help.”

Bellamy simply blinked at the guy for saying ‘ _library_ ’ like it was a dirty word, halfway offended and halfway over this conversation by now. “We’re in a library. I work here.”

The blonde one realized he was starting to lose serious interest and hastily introduced herself as Niylah. The prick on her right was Finn, and the expressionless girl on his right was Lexa. Then she did this whole spiel about needing him as a person, not a librarian, like the two were somehow mutually exclusive. 

Besides, he’s not even a fucking librarian. The right term is _library technician_. Because, no, he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth that allowed him to get a master’s degree, no matter how self-evident that might seem to these people. 

Funny how they needed _his_ help though, and Bellamy held onto that little sliver of self righteous satisfaction as he allowed the conversation to continue.

“This is all sounding completely normal,” Bellamy deadpanned, because no matter how hard he was holding on, he still wasn’t really in the mood to get in trouble for a bunch of privileged-looking strangers. He likes this job and he’d like to keep it. 

Yet even he could hear the hint of doubt shimmer through in his own voice. _We need you._ That’s like the fucking specialized Bellamy Blake verbal catnip. It was kind of annoying. 

Finn and Niylah seemed to awkwardly try and explain what they actually needed from him, but it wasn’t until the tall, stoic brunette uncrossed her delicately tattooed arms from her chest that they cut straight through their pathetic pleading and to the point. “We want to offer you money to date a girl. Specifically, a student at this school.”

There were a million questions that popped up in his head at once, but the first one that left his lips was, “A girl?”

Lexa pressed her lips into a tight line, relented, “Clarke Griffin.”

Bellamy tilted his head back, pieces of the puzzle falling into place as he eyed them suspiciously. The campus princess, huh? Now that he was thinking about it, he’d seen her hanging around with Lexa sometimes. They’d reserve one of the small study rooms in the back for the afternoon and wouldn’t come up for air until their time slot had long passed. Skeptical, he’d asked for some elaboration, so at least if he’d laugh in their faces, it would be founded on the words that actually came out of their mouths, “You want me to date her... and do what?”

They’d all burst out into explanations at once. 

“Look, there’s a pattern here. She goes around campus luring in innocent victim after victim--” Finn had rattled on the loudest and most obnoxiously.

Lexa scowled, “You make her sound like a serial killer.”

“--makes them fall for her and then just discards them like they’re worth nothing more than the gum on the filthy bottom of her Dr. Martens.”

“We found out she was dating the three of us at the same time,” Niylah clarified, trying to cover up the grimace on her face with a tight smile. “Or there was at least some overlap, as far as we can tell.”

Lexa pursed her lips, the light catching on the piercing in her nose. “We thought it was only right if she got served a taste of her own medicine for once.” Her shoulders lifted briefly, casual. “An eye for an eye.”

Bellamy simply blinked at them, processing the metaphorical cat coming out of the bag. So they’re scorned exes. He still didn’t know what this had to do with _him_. “Why me?” It didn’t sound, or look, like this Clarke person was particularly picky. He’s sure some frat boy would be happy to take their cash in exchange for a guaranteed fuck.

Niylah and Finn exchanged a glance, looking uncomfortable, but Lexa gave him a quick once-over, green eyes blinking slowly with disdain. “You’re not exactly her usual type.”

“What?” He bit back, eyeing the only surface level common denominator in this threesome of misfits. “White?”

Finn bristled, “She’s not like that.”

Bellamy flicked his eyes up to the ceiling, because, _sure_. “I’m shaking from suspense.”

Niylah shrugged, circling one of her hands in front of her. “I don’t know. Unattainable. Mysterious. Older—”

His brows shot up, slightly offended. He’s not particularly vain, but he knows he looks good for a twenty-eight year old regardless. Besides, he’s pretty sure the woman has more than a few years on him judging by the crinkles around her light eyes and the grey hairs peeking from under her bright colorful scarf.

“Poor,” Flipface mumbled under his breath, giving his beat-up iPhone a judgemental look as he pulled on the bottom of his letterman jacket to straighten it as if uncomfortable under Bellamy’s gaze.

Lexa inhaled sharply, cutting to the chase. “She likes a challenge.”

At that point, Bellamy figured he’d spent enough time entertaining their nonsense. He should probably go tease Miller for being such a lovesick idiot anyway, it’s been over twenty minutes. “I can’t help you guys.”

Lexa slid a piece of paper over the counter. “This is just the upfront payment. You’ll get about as much for every date, and then triple the amount once you finish the job.”

Bellamy wasn’t crazy. Not even taking into account how they were making this sound like he would be taking her out near the end of the deal, he did in most ways consider himself to be a good person. Well, maybe not _good_ , but definitely decent. He’s loyal to his friends, and he works his ass off to be able to put his sister through college, and sometimes he would walk his old neighbour’s dog if his hip was giving him too much trouble. If he agreed to this, it would definitely put him in Not Decent territory, he was fully aware of that. 

Hell, if anyone tried to pull something on his sister like this, he would absolutely fucking tear them to shreds. 

But then he was looking at the little slip of paper on the counter, just lying there, taunting him, and he’s thinking about rent, and electricity, and water, and how big of a fucking hypocrite he is, and how Octavia needs a new winter coat, and that hospital bill from his sister’s broken elbow he’s still paying off, and the money Miller’s lent him like six months ago, and the money Harper told him not to bother to try and give her back even more months ago, and he thinks maybe this won’t be so bad.

Maybe he’ll just be doing karma’s work, you know. He’s going to break some poor unassuming girl’s heart, and she’s going to come out a better person, changed for good. He could be her Augustus Waters or whatever, without all the dying. 

He’ll be off worse, as a formerly Decent Person, but at least they’ll still have a roof above their heads. Bellamy swallowed, hard, and then heard himself give in before he even had the chance to fully process it, “So what exactly do you guys expect from me here?”

Fast-forward to today, and he’s sitting across the infamous girl in question herself. Bellamy doesn't feel that bad. He hasn't in any way manipulated the situation. This is his place of work, he works here, he is contractually obligated to be here. She so happened to be there as well. 

He’s seen her around before, obviously. Everyone knows Clarke Griffin, if only because she was in the same car as the dean’s son when he died. Maybe because she once stood in front of the entire school and loudly told her volleyball coach he might be their coach, but he wasn’t in charge. Some legends might even say she’s the champion of Quarters and that not a single frat boy ever stood a chance.

It’s not _that_ big of a campus.

Yet, Bellamy is kind of baffled by this whole thing still. Sitting here, he’s decided that this is as plain of a girl as any other. She only ever wears black or muted blues with the non-sexy kind of leather jackets and modest jeans that aren’t _exactly_ mom jeans, but close enough to it to make him wonder if she wouldn’t just be better off actually wearing mom jeans. Her blonde hair is sleek by choice, always pulled away from her face. Her skin pale and smooth, completely unscarred. The only thing out of place is the splashes of paint staining her delicate fingers as she writes down endless sentences in her note book, the script perfectly precise, not a letter out of place. Bellamy guesses there _is_ a sparkle in her blue eyes that he would like to ignite if he had nothing better to do, see how far he could push her before it appears again, but it's gone before he can even really figure out where to start. She’s hard to read.

It’s there -- and only because his eyes lingered on the beauty mark right above her lip just a little too long -- where Bellamy notices the small sheen beneath one of her eyes. It makes his stomach churn. God, he’s a piece of shit. She’s upset about something, he realizes, and it actually makes him feel bad for a moment, even reconsider this whole ‘morally ambiguous taking money to hit on her like a cheap whore’ thing.

“Are you okay?” Bellamy asks her, sincere, his shoulders slumping a little as he sits up. There’s still the bitter little voice in his head telling him her dad probably refused to buy her a new car after she crashed the last, or maybe her favorite designer store ran out of the purse she’s really wanted for three days now. Some rich girl anguish, you know. 

Surprise flits across her eyes for just a brief second before she looks away from him, hastily wiping under her eye with her sleeve, mask falling back into place. "Seriously, go jerk off on the toilet. I’m trying to study."

If this was anyone else his ego might’ve taken a dent, because he’s usually pretty successful picking up anyone when he puts on all the charm, but he didn’t even get to pull out any of the good stuff, because she’s decided he’s not worth her time before he even got the chance. 

Honestly, he’s not in the mood to be yelled at by a privileged princess for doing what any decent person would, which is checking up on someone who’s visibly upset. She can go fuck herself, too. 

Bellamy’s already over this before it’s even started. "So does this mean we're not getting drinks after this?"

Clarke flips him off, and he figures she’s just having allergies before pushing himself up from the chair and walking back to his cart of returned books. It’s the last he thinks of it.

Turns out the gruesome threesome was wrong, and he’s not really her type. Actually, she’s kind of stuck up, probably thinks she’s too good for him or something. 

And well, Bellamy did his best. He tried, albeit doing the bare minimum, but it’s obvious she wanted nothing to do with him. It’s like a preternatural sign from the Universe, or something, that he shouldn’t follow through with this. 

His heart wasn’t really in it anyway. 

* * *

Somehow, accidentally, Bellamy’s part of the plan without ever agreeing to be part of it to begin with. He guesses it’s on him for ever giving them his number to start with, when he first considered joining them. That was before realizing it wasn’t going to work out, but he enjoys the regular updates nonetheless. Mostly because they all seem to blow up in their faces one way or another, and he kind of thrives on that righteous kind of Schadenfreude. Life dealt him so many bad cards, he’s not going to lie and pretend it doesn’t feel good to see people like them suffer for once. 

It’s free entertainment.

_ THREE HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE  _

_+1 (202) 558 0101: i spread the rumour she has crabs_

_: When we said go low, we didn’t mean that low_

_Alexandra DuFort: People are going to think you gave them to her, genius_

Besides, Bellamy wasn’t _actually_ planning on following through with any of it after last time. The girl was stuck-up and entitled and definitely not interested in _him_. Not until fate intervenes, that is, and he accidentally runs into Clarke at a small dive bar a few miles from campus, the kind of place that’s always busy no matter the time of day. 

He was supposed to meet Miller there for a drink, but he gets a last minute cancellation text. It just says his best friend would prefer to spend his Friday night with his boyfriend. It’s not actually that last minute, Bellamy’s crappy old phone just randomly loses service whenever it feels like it. 

Bellamy can’t even be mad at Miller, because if he was the one with a significant other, he’d totally rather spend his Friday night curled up on the couch doing nothing. He’d have absolutely no problem ditching any of his friends, or his sister for that matter, either. So he figures he’ll just have a congratulatory drink on his friends behalf, for sucking less at getting people to stick around.

You see, Bellamy considers himself kind of a pro at picking up girls. It’s the part where he needs to get them to stay he has no luck with. He personally thinks he’d kill at having relationships, but he’s never gotten to test out that hypothesis because no one ever stays around long enough to find out. It would’ve given any other person a complex, and he definitely has some of those, but he believes when the time is right he’ll find someone eventually. Miller would have his ass if he ever admitted this out loud, but Bellamy is sort of a romantic like that. 

Doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy casual fucking though. He definitely does. And maybe that’s still on his horizon for today. His shirt is clean enough and the bar’s packed.

And Clarke, she seems kind of the opposite of who he’d expect to be good at picking up people. Nevermind the whole distanced holier-than-thou attitude and the perpetually stone-cold expression in public, she just seems kind of like a goodie two shoes. You know, the student who asks for extra credit work when they’re already at the top of the class.

It’s why he’s so taken aback -- and well, _impressed_ \-- by her game. 

In the back of his mind, Bellamy kind of knew, because she played three people at the same time without any regrets whatsoever, but he considered maybe she was just one of those people who snuck up on you quietly, or that they were blinded by her rack, or something. (It’s a _really_ great rack, he’s happened to notice, like -- _criminally_ great.)

Nursing the cheapest drink on the card he could actually stomach and wasn’t just straight up rat poison, Bellamy spots Niylah first. She’s sitting in a corner booth with some old, bearded professor, sharing a bottle of wine and a dish of green olives, probably discussing what liberal third party they’re going to vote for. Niylah raises her almost-too-dark eyebrows at him, her eyes lighting up in recognition before she slightly nudges her head toward the dart board on his left. 

Bellamy follows her gaze to find, out of all people, Clarke Griffin being moon-eyed at by some guy in an expensive jacket, definitely not college-aged, while throwing darts at the board. So _older_ people, at least they were right about that.

Speaking of older people, he looks back at Niylah, her eyes still locked on Clarke. She must have really liked the girl, because her expression is nothing if not bitter. Probably figured he was here to bring their plan to it’s next level, as if he doesn’t have anything else to do on a Friday night. 

His brown eyes stray. Clarke is slamming down a shot, laughing at whatever the guy beside her is saying about her terrible darting skills. Her laugh is light and bubbly, and Bellamy finds himself biting back a smile as she tells the guy with a coy grin, brushing her long hair behind her ear, “I learn the best with a hands on approach. Maybe you could show me?”

See, she’s _good_. Her game is fucking sold. Might even be giving him a run for his money. He’s definitely impressed.

Except Niylah doesn’t seem to share the same sentiment, nor any patience or insight when it comes to the bigger picture, because suddenly she’s over there with her hand wrapped tightly around the stem of her wine glass, giving her a stern speech about how ‘ _she never learns_ ’ and it’s ‘ _not nice_ ’ to ‘ _lead people on_ ’. He thinks she throws in a Buddha quote, too.

Clarke looks as unaffected as one can be, although somewhat apologetic as she tries to shoehorn herself into the one-sided conversation politely, but with a definite purpose, reaching out to put her hand over the older woman’s shoulder, “I never meant to lead you on, Nai.”

Bellamy is close enough to see the tears well up in Niylah’s eyes, but far away enough to not catch the residual fall-out of the wineglass she tosses at Clarke’s shirt, biting a low, “You should be ashamed of yourself,” before storming off. 

The guy who definitely thought Clarke was interesting enough, if only for a night, just kind of stupidly stands there, gaping at the red seeping into Clarke’s top. He mutters something her way Bellamy can’t make out over the low music and the burning stares of half the bar, shaking his head before walking off. 

Her cheeks are red with humiliation, and since nobody else seems to be doing anything, Bellamy goes over there with a few napkins. The damage’s already been done, but it’s the least he could do after his not-so-pure intentions last time. He doesn’t believe in karma, but it won’t hurt to try and fix his past mistakes. 

Her blue eyes flick from where she’s wiping at her chest up to him as he appears in front of her, and after the initial glint of recognition, they just turn cold. “Come here to gloat?”

“Bad ex?” Bellamy offers instead, holding out the stack of napkins. He isn’t interested in getting off on the wrong foot again. 

In hindsight, last time Clarke probably assumed he was just there to hit on her. While that was technically true, he abandoned that plan as soon as he thought she was crying. He was definitely an asshole, but not the kind of asshole that preys on vulnerable, upset girls. So while he still feels her reaction was completely unwarranted, he could definitely get over it long enough to collect another check from the unholy trinity. He’s forgiving like that. 

It’s perfect really. The one up he was gonna have on them being absolutely pathetic and borderline crazy was that he was not going to go out of his way to help them. This opportunity practically fell into his lap so he still rightfully feels like he has the moral high ground here. 

“One of many apparently,” Clarke mutters, reluctantly taking the napkins from him, careful to not brush their fingers, before she starts dabbing at her shirt. It’s different from what she usually wears, slightly cropped with short sleeves and buttons across her stomach and the top part covering her cleavage tied together with a string. It’s blue though, a pale shade, so it doesn’t actually count, he convinces himself. 

Plus, it looks way too complicated to take off in the dark. Not that he’s going to be doing that, there’s just a little gap between the buttons and the tie and it’s showing off a bit of pale smooth skin where he finds his gaze linger more often than it should. 

“I’d be pretty bitter over losing you too,” Bellamy says, kindly, hoping to get the hard expression on her face to crack, and it’s not even really a line. And it’s not the blinding rack either. He just thinks she’s pretty badass, standing here unashamed after having a drink dumped on her in the middle of a public establishment. 

Clarke gives up on trying to save her top, discarding the napkins into a sad, wet puddle on top of the bar. “So what, you _don’t_ think I’m a slut?” Her voice is even, but there’s the shimmer of something pained in her eyes before it’s gone again. It must’ve been what the guy told her before he left, as if he wasn’t begging to get into her pants minutes before.

“You’re definitely a slut,” Bellamy agrees, catching her by surprise as far as he can tell by the murderous glare that takes over her face, “But so am I.”

Clarke breaks into a smile this time, genuine, and fuck, that’s like -- _wow_. He wants to run his thumb over her lips and kiss the little beauty mark right above them. 

“I’m in college, I still have time for a redemption arc,” she argues, and although he can tell her guard is still up, he enjoys this side of her more. The one actually giving him a chance. “My personality is still kneadable.”

“Somehow I doubt that.” From what he can tell she’s pretty headstrong. Bellamy nudges his head toward the bar a few feet away from them, and she follows him to sit down on one of the sticky leather stools. “What’s your major?”

“Pre-med.” Of course. “Not sure if I’m going to medical school yet, though.” Interesting. Maybe her parents want her to marry a CEO or take over their business.

Bellamy nods, wise. Not sure what he’s trying to prove, that one drink probably getting to his head, he boasts, “I have medical knowledge.”

She quirks a brow, unimpressed with his metaphorical peeing contest but intrigued. “Do tell.”

He taps his fingers on the bar, racking his brain for any useless encyclopedic facts. Bellamy usually skips through the biology sections though, goes straight for history. He remembers a TikTok his sister showed him though. “You physically can’t stick out your tongue flat and keep it still.”

She sits up on her stool a little, clearly envisioning it first before she decides she disagrees, shifting her head back to him to hold out her tongue. Her eyebrows are raised in a challenge, but he can see the glint of defeat in her eyes as she, too, realizes she can’t keep her tongue motionless, not even with using sheer power of will. 

Bellamy can’t help but grin, wide. Not just at being right, but the whole mental imagery coming with this look on her. “You look so pretty like this.”

It takes a beat for her eyes to light up and her cheeks to flush a pretty pink, and then she’s shoving him in the shoulder. “Keep dreaming.”

Look, Clarke doesn’t need to like _him_ in order for them to have a good time. Just _certain_ parts of him, and he’s never gotten any complaints before. He’s seriously considering it. 

Bellamy is still chuckling when she sends him another wary look. “Has that line seriously ever worked on a girl before?”

“No, it did on one guy, though,” Bellamy admits, thinking back on that one wild gap month he took road tripping through the country before realizing that even though he was mad at the world for various reasons but _especially_ for being so unfair, and even though he hated shouldering all the responsibility at home when it came to his sister, he also couldn’t leave her behind with his mom when she could go back off the rails at any moment. So he grew up. But not before having some fun, last stop Tijuana. “He looked good on his knees.”

Clarke bright blue eyes clear up a little. “You’re bi too?”

“I’ve never really put a label on it, but it didn’t suck.” He grins, knowing damn well he’s being an idiot, “No pun intended.” Clarke rolls her eyes and he purses his lips, thinking of the tall Tijuanian bartender with a little white patch of hair that sounded really sexy cursing in Spanish. “Me and Gabriel still text sometimes.” He shrugs, not particularly sorry or overjoyed by his next statement, “I’m just more into girls.”

“Nice.” She offers him a high five, “Me too.”

Her hand is tiny compared to this, warm to the touch. She’s still smiling, bright in all it’s camaraderie, and he thinks she’s actually not that bad. Maybe in another life, they could’ve been friends. 

“Okay, I have another one,” Bellamy announces, briefly pausing to tell the bartender his order, looking at Clarke’s for hers, before shifting on his stool so he is facing her, elbow on top of the sticky counter. “In five-thousand BC they thought that the liver made blood and the heart was the center of thought.” He actually _did_ read about that one. 

“Maybe you should be the one going to med school,” Clarke teases, brushing her long hair off her shoulder as she takes a sip of the beer the bartender just placed in front of her. “I think you’d blow them away.” 

“You just keep bringing up blowing, huh?”

Clarke matches his smirk. “Maybe it’s me subtly trying to imply you should go do exactly that to yourself.”

His pocket buzzes so he quickly checks his messages in case it’s his sister and the power got cut off again, but it’s just Miller asking if he got home okay. Not in so many words, just “ _u dead in a ditch_?” but it’s the sentiment that counts. He puts the phone down beside his drink, but it’s already caught Clarke’s undivided attention.

“What the hell is this?” Picking up his battered phone, she laughs, loud and unapologetic and a little like it catches her by surprise. “Jesus Christ,” she curses, examining the device meticulously as if it’s an ancient relic. “Does this send smoke signals or something?”

“No,” he snorts, wrestling it back from her grip and poking her in the ribs as payback. “But it has an app to locate my messenger pigeon.”

To her credit, she doesn’t use the opportunity to make a backhanded compliment about his environmental consciousness that’s actually just a poorly concealed dig at how poor he is. Instead they have another beer, and then another one while she miraculously _beats_ him at darts, no hands on approach needed, and by the end of the night they hold a competition to see who can get the most napkin numbers and/or Snapcodes (which counts as double points simply for what it implies).

He has so much fun, he almost forgets about her exes completely. 

* * *

Bellamy is pulled from the reverie of the novel he’s currently reading

when he feels someone loom over him by his little coffee shop corner booth. 

“Circe, I love that one,” Clarke smiles at him, then tilts her head towards the empty spot across from him. There’s a rainbow tote bag slung over her shoulder and a saucer with a cup balanced in her hand, an oversized sweater hanging from her frame. Blue really is her color. “Is this seat taken?”

If he was a better person, he’d say yes. Pretend he was waiting for one of his friends, or simply just not interested in spending anymore time with her. Bellamy felt kind of dirty after their most recent encounter. Not straight after, but around the time he woke up hungover and with a new notification from Venmo. It made him feel downright _filthy_ when he immediately used the large sum of money A.G. DuFort transferred to him to do a grocery run that would last him the next three weeks. 

Instead, because he’s a terrible human being, Bellamy says, “You’ve read Circe?” and proceeds to lean over the corner of the table to shove his bag aside. 

She slides into the booth, carefully putting the saucer down before slipping her bag off her shoulder and tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “A woman who’s a fervent magic wand enthusiast, sounds about right up my alley.”

There’s a teasing tone to her voice, as if they’re two bros joking around, and he didn’t just almost choke on his Chai. “Maybe if you put the brakes on the sluttiness and actually gave someone a chance, you could retire the old wand,“ he counters, all jokingly and casual, although now all he can think about is a flushed Clarke on her bed, probably on top of some blue covers, naked chest heaving as she touches herself. His knee jerks up against the table, but he plays it off as an accident. He really fucking needs to get laid. Soon. 

“I’m not really interested in anything serious right now,” Clarke says matter of factly, pulling a sketchbook from her bag. She actively avoids his gaze, brows pinched together.

There seems to be something more there from the suddenly harsh and not at all subtle tone, something she’s not telling him by the hard look on her face. More than anything, he wants to break through the mask she puts on. But even more than _that,_ he doesn’t want to push her, or make her feel uncomfortable, so he doesn’t. If she wants to tell him, she will. 

Bellamy folds his arms on top of the table, “I’m genuinely wondering where a girl like you got the kind of skills you do.” He grins, shaking his head lightly. “My ego is still recovering from the blow of you taking it home twelve to nine.”

“A girl like me?” Clarke repeats, slowly, blinking at him. “What kind of girl might that be?”

“You just seem -- I don’t know. Like you holiday in the Hamptons and know what caviar tastes like.” Bellamy shrugs, back of his neck tingling with embarrassment. “You’re probably on a first name basis with some of your professors.”

Clarke squints at him, fingers tight around her cup. “Do you have a criminal record?”

He looks at her for a moment, deciding if she’s serious or not. “What?”

She purses her lips, lifting her shoulder casually. “Well, you work in a college library instead of actually having gone to one yourself, always hanging around that shady dude and that tattoo on your arm looks to be from a prison gang so one can only assume...”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bellamy brushes her off with a roll of her eyes. “You’ve made your point.” His gaze slips down to his bicep for just a moment, the simple black band spanning around his arm, only interrupted by an olive branch on the inside of his arm, his sister’s date of birth inside of it. He’s halfway offended as he mumbles, “It’s Latin by the way.”

Clarke sits back against the booth, looking satisfied with herself. “It would really suck for people to assume who you are based on a few dumb stereotypes, wouldn’t it?”

He scoffs, shaking his head lightly to himself as a huff of laughter escapes his lips. “I can’t believe you think Miller is shady just because he wears a beanie twenty-four/seven.”

“That,” she agrees, sarcasm lining her voice, a twinkle in her eye he likes a little bit too much, “and I know he deals weed on the side.”

Fair enough, Bellamy thinks. “His boyfriend Bryan grows his supply.”

“Good to know I’m in the inner circle now.”

“Maybe you could do our PR, since you seem to be such a natural.”

“You know...” Clarke sits up, stirs her coffee with the spoon she picks up from the saucer, eyes intent on the swirling movement. Something shifts, just a flicker in her eyes, the air growing thicker. Her voice is softer now. “I am well aware of what other people say about me.”

Bellamy’s never actively been listening but he’s heard some things regardless. Libraries are a notorious gossip hub. There’s the regular slutshaming with various degrees of sexism going on, the rumours of her being a heartless bitch, and even people accusing her of being a sociopath. He’s sure that’s not even the worst of it. 

The thing is, people have said bad things about him too. Especially in high school, when sometimes his anger got the best of him. A teacher was up his ass for being late after a two day absence and he was trying to explain how his sister was sick and his mom was missing, off on another one of her drug-infused spirals. He tried to mention the eviction notice and the angry ex-boyfriend pounding down their door looking for his fix, how he had to hide his sick sister in the closet and hope for the best, but Mr. Shumway didn’t want to hear it. He already made up his mind about why Bellamy was late, and nothing he could say would change that. All Mr. Shumway could do was tear him up for being a ‘ _lazy entitled student’_ with ‘ _weak, pathetic excuses_ ’ and who wasn’t ‘ _living up to his responsibilities_ ’. 

So, in a moment of white hot anger, Bellamy punched him. He paid the consequences. Not only with a three day suspension, a stint in juvy and the threat of CPS taking his sister away from him, but also more subtly. People avoiding him in the hallway, not looking him straight in the eye. Being scared of him for no reason. Whispering about how insane and explosive he was behind his back. Snap once after years and years of building frustration, and then suddenly that’s all people see. One mistake, and then that’s all people think you are. 

People, especially in a place like this -- they’re all sheep, following along with whatever defense mechanism keeps them alive the longest. And dividing the attention to someone else has always been the most effective way to do so. If the crowd of vultures is not looking at you, you’re safe.

He gave his last fuck about the collective opinion of a crowd on anything years ago. Screw them, he’s writing his own damn story.

“Lucky for you I don’t really care about what anyone else thinks,” Bellamy presses, grinning. He pauses, not entirely sure what’s coming over him. He doesn’t usually get to any of this, the deep stuff, until at least a few months into the relationship, and as aforementioned, that doesn’t happen frequently. Hell, he’s hardly ever gotten this serious with Miller, or even his sister. Yet, the words come naturally, because he can feel she needs them, just like he once did. His dark eyes soften, tongue swiping across his bottom lip to wet it. “Clarke, who you are is not just what you’ve done.”

She turns her head to the side, nails biting into her palm hard enough to leave angry welts, before looking straight at him, brow furrowed and lips trembling. Her eyes narrowed, as if they’re arguing. “What if the things you’ve done are terrible?”

“We all have done things we regret.” Bellamy knows that better than anyone else. “You’re not the opinion of someone who just knows your mistakes, and doesn’t know you. The real you.”

For a second, there seems to be tears in her eyes. Then she blinks, and they’re gone, replaced with a shaky smile. She has the best smile, and he wishes he could see it more often. “To be fair, Charmaine does give me unfairly high grades because she has a crush on my stepdad.”

Bellamy laughs, strangely lighthearted for the moment they just shared. “Advanced chemistry?” He guesses, trying to think of what sounds like it’d be a pre-med class.

“Political science actually,” Clarke corrects him, hurrying to swallow the sip of coffee she just took from her cup, both hands folded around it. “Marcus is a senator.”

With her godfather as the dean, her stepfather being a senator is far from surprising. Deadpanning, “Of course he is.”

She rolls her eyes, good-naturedly. “Well, he’s a silver fox and very outspokenly against facism. You can do the math.”

“Actually I can’t,” he retorts, smug, grinning like the cat that got the cream. “They didn’t teach us that in prison.”

Clarke’s laughing, a sweet melodic sound, and he’s only slightly startled when she reaches out to put her hand over his, brief. Her fingers soft on his skin. As an afterthought, she says, quietly, “Thanks.”

Bellamy brushes it off, pulling his hand into his lap as soon as her fingers return to her coffee cup. He doesn’t really feel comfortable taking credit for something he would’ve done for anyone else. She shouldn’t see it as some big favor he did her. He catches her gaze linger on the red-velvet cookie stuffed onto the dish by his tea. Before his brain realizes he’s doing it, he’s holding it out to her. “You want it?”

She looks sheepish, biting down on her lip. Her stomach grumbles, giving her away. It makes him snort. Her cheeks flush, opening her mouth, but before she can say anything, he raises his eyebrows, nudging it toward her once more, “Seriously, I’m not hungry.”

Reluctantly, she accepts it, taking a small bite. Her eyes widen, and he’s grinning just watching her. 

“Oh my God,” Clarke says, her mouth full as she stuffs another bite in there, cookie crumbling everywhere. She lets out a moan that should be illegal, and it goes straight to his dick. “How have I never tried this before?”

“Because I baked it myself,” Bellamy reveals, watching the crumb stuck to her bottom lip with much more interest than he should before he collects himself. He clears his throat. “Miller buys the ingredients in return for my free labor and I let him have half of them.”

Clarke pauses, swallowing hard. All the color drains from her face. “Are they…”

He bites back a laugh, leaning back in the booth as he stares her down. “Why? Is the princess above using drugs?”

“I’m not. I just --” Her eyes flit around, keeping her voice down. “I’m on academic probation. I have a drug test this week.”

Bellamy’s eyes widen, because he did not see that one coming from the campus princess herself. She’s turning sexier by the minute and it’s a bad, very Bad thing. She’s looking a little desperate, so he decides to let her off the hook, “Well, I don’t want to go back to prison, so, _no_ ,--”

Clarke slumps back in her seat from relief, rolling her eyes goodnaturedly. “Let it go.”

He clears his throat, taking another sip of his tea before he can no longer keep himself from asking, “What did you do?’

She closes her eyes, brief, expression full of regret and humiliation. Through gritted teeth, she reveals, “I got high and broke into the lab. I punched through a window to free the mice they were using for a biology experiment.”

He whistles. “Damn.” Raising his eyebrows, “What was the occasion?”

“Just a bad day,” Clarke mumbles, deliberately vague. She shrugs, rubbing at her nose with the back of her hand. “And some sad mouse videos.”

“Bare hand?”

“Got the scars to prove it,” she replies, not even boasting, holding out her arm over the table as she shoves her sweater up to her elbow. 

Bellamy runs his finger over the crooked, angry red line running on the inside of her wrist to a few inches beneath the joint. He smiles to himself, soft, thumb lingering on her pulsepoint. “Brave princess.”

There’s a dangerous glint in her eyes. “You’re just figuring that out now?”

He lets go of her wrist, watching her slide her sweater back into place. He’s kind of disappointed to see all that creamy, soft skin go back to being covered. Instead of answering, he announces, “I’m going back to reading.”

“Finally,” she teases, “I’d thought you’d never shut up.”

He keeps quiet, but he feels her eyes on him as she takes out her pencil. Letting him know, “I’ll be here. Drawing,” like she still half expects him to ask her to leave.

He’s not sure he ever wants her to. And that’s a problem.

“Happy to be your muse.”

“Your ego…” She gapes at him, hands stilling on her sketchbook. “The size of it manages to astonish me every single time.”

The corner of his mouth turns up cockily, deliberately not looking up from his book. “That’s what they all say.”

A pause, and then she throws a scrunched up napkin his way, just nearly missing his head. “You’re insufferable.”

“Be quiet, I’m trying to read.”

* * *

Bellamy kind of knew this was going to happen, considering Lexa announced the plan in their group chat yesterday, as he realized the morning of, opening the text thread for the first time in a week.

_ MISFORTUNE’S CHILD  _

Alexandra DuFort: I have decided.

Alexandra DuFort: I will be entering the communal showers while our target is showering and dilute her shampoo with 40 volume bleach.

: 40 volume? She might go bald, Lex

+1 (202) 558 0101: anything to keep her from luring in and hurting more innocent people

: again, not a serial killer. Just an asshole

Bellamy also knew it backfired spectaculary, if the “ _no fucking way_ ”, “ _this is so unfair, how does she just look hotter?_ ” and the string of gifs of a Kardashian frothing at the mouth and a white lady tearing up a room were anything to go by. 

He didn’t realize how _spectacularly_ until she marched right up to the counter of the library, using a low voice that just made her sound hoarser than usual to tell him, “Do not comment.”

Bellamy looks up from his beaten up copy of _Metamorphoses_ slowly, first landing on the way her fingers were curled into fists on top of the counter, nails painted black, before moving up towards her face. She isn’t wearing blue, he notes funnily, instead there’s a tight leather top leaving a sliver of stomach exposed with a flannel shirt thrown over top. His eyes move further up, and he feels like some grunge indie cover of Cherry Bomb should be playing as he blinks at her perfect face, now framed by a lighter tint of ashy blonde, the ends pink. 

_Holy shit._

“Uhm,” he starts, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he just stares at her. His brain now just the equivalent of a monkey going feral on a pair of cymbals.

“Some asshole put bleach in my shampoo,” Clarke explains through gritted teeth, a little dent above her eyebrow, right next to the small birthmark she has there. “I had a mental breakdown for fifteen minutes. Then I bought toner and cheap pink hair dye and got over myself.”

Bellamy opens and closes his mouth soundlessly, eyes flitting across her appearance. His first thought is he misses her golden blonde locks, but damn if she doesn’t look fucking sexy like this. Some sort of rated-R Disney princess straight from his dreams. So sexy, it physically hurts. 

Her lips are pressed into a thin line, crossing her arms over her chest self-consciously. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

He collects himself enough to stop making a complete dick out of himself, willing his caveman hormones to go back to the gutter section of his brain where they belong. “I thought you said no comment.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, some of the tension draining from her shoulders. “Obviously I said that before I laid out my entire sob story.”

He clears his throat, putting down his book upside down to not lose the page as he gives her another once over. His thoughts feel like they’re all stuttering, failing to load into something comprehensible. She paired the top and the flannel with dark, ripped jeans and Dr. Martens, her dark lips a cherry red. He gives his head a small shake, stirring the curls by his forehead, hoping to break himself out of his own stupid fogged brainhaze. “Did you dive into your Halloween dress-up trunk?”

“My cousin’s, Josie’s, closet actually,” she says with a small shrug, tucking her hair behind her ear. He follows the movement with his eyes, as if it’s happening in slow motion. “She went through a goth phase after her boyfriend broke it off for the seventeenth time. I stole some of them back when I dated my ex.” She scrunches up her nose just slightly, “Tried to impress her.”

He reaches over the counter and tugs on a strand, smiling. “Well, I like it.” He might be mistaken, but her cheeks seem to color just a shade darker. “Very pretty.”

“I’m overcompensating. I’m not doing so well, internally,” Clarke tells him calmly, face first flashing with raw pain, and then a desperate kind of disbelief, “And I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“Comes with the profession,” Bellamy jokes, trying anything to get her to crack a smile, air around them grown heavy. “We’re right under bartenders on the list of free therapists.” He smiles, easy. “Or maybe it’s just my face, you know. I do have one of those faces.”

“I like your face,” she agrees, and then her smile wobbles a little as she pinches the bridge of her nose, letting out a deep, shaky sigh. “It just -- means a lot, you know?”

She takes a step aside, looking on awkwardly as another student comes to return a book, Bellamy making quick work out of scanning the back, wishing them a good day and sending them on their merry way. 

He swallows, worried the moment’s gone, then presses -- quietly, trying to not scare her off -- anyway, “What does?”

Hesitation flickers across her eyes, but then she sighs, taking a step back towards the counter, one hand on the strap of her bag and the other flat on the counter. She puts on a smile, as if trying to keep it light. “Despite popular beliefs, I don’t have that many friends.” 

If he’d just been watching her face and not actually hearing her words, he’d think she was telling him about the weather. But her voice breaks a little on the last syllable, and he wants to actually punch his own face in. 

“Cute,” he scoffs, even though he feels like every last breath of air’s been forcefully knocked from his lungs. Bellamy doesn’t know how he manages to keep his voice straight with the way his heart seems to shrink in his chest with guilt. “You consider us friends?” 

Clarke closes her eyes for just a second, nostrils flaring as if she’s trying to hold on to the very last bit of her patience. “I feel like a fucking discount Quinn Fabray right now, can you not be a dick for a minute?”

He tilts his head back slightly, considering it. “Really? That fake nose-piercing didn’t do her any favors.”

She blinks at him. “You watched Glee?”

“I had a twelve year old sister at one point, yeah,” Bellamy shrugs, not that ashamed. Octavia terrorized him into doing whatever she wanted to do all the time. She’s made him watch much worse shit than a hopefully satire musical tv show. He was just glad it distracted her from the fact their mom was passed out cold again, or the fact they had no heating in the middle of winter. Clarke opens her mouth, but he cuts her off before she can say anything else. “Look -- I’m sure there’s a lot of things in your life you should be agonizing over, but the way you look really doesn’t deserve to be one of them.”

A slow grin spreads across her face. “So you admit you want to have my babies?”

If his mouth wasn’t so dry, he would’ve choked on his own spit right about now. Yet, he manages, “Hot mess is just my type.”

She shoves him, over the counter, still smiling. “I’m going to study.”

He nods, then catches her by the wrist before she can turn away completely. “Hey,” Bellamy says, quietly, clearing his throat. He was never supposed to _like_ her. It’s horrible. “You’re my friend, too.”

“I know,” she says, smiling timidly, before she walks over to one of the empty tables, getting out her books. 

Next time he steals a glance over there, highlighter frozen in her grip, she’s already looking at him, and he thinks, _fuck_. This is going all wrong.

.

Bellamy’s just finished sweeping one of the aisles after Clarke finally quit bothering him, abandoning him to go to class. Forty-five minutes to get one aisle done, a new record. All because she insisted on leaning back against one of the stacks of books, ranting about her modern art professor Wallace while she shared her bag of potato crisps with him.

The tips of her hair have grown a duller pink now, pulled back in a ponytail, and she’s gone back to mellowing out her outfits now that she’s sufficiently stuck it to everyone that she can pull off whatever she pleases to do so. Wearing a powder blue overall dress with a white t, bare legs enticing him unfairly as she continuously leaned one of her feet back against the stacks. He liked how she scrunched up her face whenever she got annoyed, how passionate her voice would get and how flushed her cheeks would turn. It’s half of the reason he picks so many fights with her. 

Then, trying to move on to the next aisle, Lexa corners him. It’s been over a month since he last saw her in person. She’s looking particularly bored today. “It’s been weeks. You’re nowhere near getting us anything substantial.”

Substantial? She sounds like she is about to sabotage Clarke’s political campaign. Already half annoyed, he squats down to collect a pile of gum wrappers and food crumbs, sweeping it into the dustpan in his hand with a brush. Purposely keeping his back to her, “I’m winning her trust, it takes time.”

“You agreed to a deal, Blake, you better keep yourself to it,” Lexa hisses, even if somehow it still sounds utterly calm. He turns, lifting himself to his full height, even if he still feels small under her gaze. He doesn’t know what Clarke ever saw in her, everything about the girl is calculating. The only thing he gets is why she broke it off. He saw her campaign flyer for president of Pride club. Bring your own snacks and must agree to fifteen minutes of meditation every meeting? She sucks. “There’s one thing worse than a man, and that’s a man with no honor.”

“I’m doing what you asked,” he seethes, grip on the dustpan so tight his knuckles are a stark white. He doesn’t know what she wants from him, except that he already feels like a piece of shit for what he’s doing to Clarke, considerably the best thing that’s happened to him in a while, and he doesn’t need Lexa to remind him. “But in order a break-up with me to have _any_ impact, she needs to actually like me.” God, he’s so fucking pissed at everything, at Lexa and her minions for putting him in this position, Clarke for being what he never expected, and most of all -- himself. He just knows he can’t have Lexa figure out how he actually feels before he comes up with a way to deal with it first, and she’s fucking entitled and annoying for assuming he can’t do this anyway, and the words slip out easier than he’d thought, “You think I’d be hanging out with her if it wasn’t for the weekly checks you sent me?”

Lexa stares him down for what feels like a full-on minute. He almost shrinks underneath her gaze, but it’s out of sheer pettiness he doesn’t, jaw tight as he stands there and takes it. “I guess not, since you’re telling me so.”

God, her and her fucking riddles. English Majors are the worst. He rolls his eyes. 

She purses her lips, arms crossed over her chest. There’s hesitation in her voice. “Unless...” 

Bellamy frowns. “Unless what?”

There’s a slight tilt to her head, a sympathetic glint in her eyes that’s somehow condescending at the same time. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

“Unless _what_?” He repeats, commanding, burning through the very last threads that are holding his patience together. 

She sounds strangely detached. “Unless you fell for her.”

“Of course I didn’t fall for her,” he says, heart pounding like a drum in his chest. Now that she’s said it out loud, it has started to occur to him that he wasn’t as immune to Clarke Griffin as he had originally thought. Coming face to face with the truth he’s been trying to avoid is like a slap to his face, but he pulls it together. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Try and remember this is just a game to her,” Lexa lectures him, shoulders back and chin jutted up. There’s a bitter kind of resignation to her voice, fingernails cutting into her palm the only sign of distress. “Clarke, she’s complicated. She’s distant and callous. Puts on so many masks you never know which one is real.” The corner of her mouth twitches, but she fights it. “She smiles, and you forget about all of that. For just a second, and she’s in.”

“She didn’t get in because I didn’t fall for her,” Bellamy answers through gritted teeth. He wants out of this conversation. It’s ridiculous, what she’s saying. Clarke isn’t -- it doesn’t matter. His first instinct shouldn’t be to defend her, but he despises the little voice in the back of his head even more. Telling him that maybe, Lexa’s right. Maybe he doesn’t know the real Clarke at all. 

“You know she’s slept with someone else this last week, some frat boy who just had to look nicely at her once?” He freezes, heart stuttering in his chest, but he doesn’t think Lexa even notices. “Who knows how many else there have been,” she continues, monotonously, and he doesn’t have the right to be upset, or jealous for that matter, least of all _betrayed_ , but fuck it he is. He just thought she would’ve at least told him, even just in passing. “You’re worth nothing to her.”

A silence wraps around them, Bellamy’s jaw tight as he struggles to breathe through the pit of anger in his stomach.

“Her mother would never approve of you, which is probably why she’s stuck it out this long,” Lexa rationalizes, to the both of them. A small, casual shrug. “She could never be with someone like you in the long run. Clarke likes using people for her own gain, but she might get bored soon and drop you like all the others.”

(Telling him that maybe he’s not worth shit. He took her money, didn’t he? Deep down, he knows Clarke comes from an entirely different world than him. It makes him incredibly furious with helplessness, and the only person he can take it out on is standing right in front of him.) 

Bellamy scoffs, giving her a heated once-over. “Like she dropped you?”

Her jaw tightens, eyes narrowing slightly. Then it all fades into a blank slate. “Once you realize she doesn’t care about you--”

“That would actually be peachy,” he cuts her off, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Since I don’t care about her either.”

“If you say so.” She nods, curt. “I do feel like our arrangement needs to be sufficiently adjusted in order to fit both of our likings.”

“And in what way would you want it _adjusted_?” Bellamy bites back, no longer able to hide any of his aggravation. 

“Your next date,” Lexa says simply. “We will need to be present.”

He doesn’t know how to tell her they’re not technically even dates, because they haven’t crossed into dating territory. He just blinks at her, dumbfounded. “You want to sit in a corner booth and share a plate of nachos? Together. Me and Clarke and her three exes?”

“Obviously she won’t know we’re there,” she brushes him off, easily, clasping her hands together in front of her hips. “We’ll have to be stealth.”

“Obviously,” Bellamy repeats, dumbly. He moves over the brush to the hand carrying the dustpan, scratching at his head with the now free one. He feels like he’s having some sort of out of body experience.

It’s not like he has room for any arguments, far past any moral high ground. Lexa is _paying_ him. He’s dug himself this very deep, dark grave. If he doesn’t do what she says, what’s to keep her from telling Clarke everything? And while it seems inevitable that this will blow up in his face, he’d rather it happen under controlled circumstances. 

Lexa’s lips purse. “Inform us whenever you have your next social engagement set up.”

As a last resort, he argues, “Me and Clarke don’t really plan anything. We just run into each other and roll with it.”

“So it’s time to make a move then,” she retorts, looking unimpressed. Even if that’s how she always looks. “Show her you’re interested.” One of her eyebrows quirks, and he hates that fucking self-satisfied tilt to her head, “Or is it time to cut our losses and admit it’s never going to happen?”

“I’ll plan a date and I’ll make sure you’ll be the first to know,” Bellamy snaps back, faux-sincere, before promptly turning around and making his way over to the next aisle. He gives it another five minutes of angrily staring at a row of books, trying not to go up in flames before he asks Miller to take over so he can take off early. 

Out of sheer pettiness, he makes sure to avoid Clarke for a week. It’s not really her fault, but in a roundabout way it kind of is. She dated three individually insufferable pieces of shit, and now he’s got to deal with it. She was never meant to be likeable either, and if this helps prove to himself he isn’t in too deep, great. And then Octavia tells him his old laptop broke and she’ll need a new one for school, and he’s fucking pissed the only way he’ll be able to make ends meet is if he actually takes Clarke out on a date and lets those creeps spy on them, and it all just so fucking unfair. In the end, it just seems like the easiest thing to do.

He pretends to be busy in the library whenever she is there, mumbling some excuse about needing to take his break early or having to label new books in the backroom, and going home straight from work. No coffee shops, no bars, no Clarke. 

Bellamy kind of misses her witty retorts, her confident smiles and neatly scribbled commentary and highlighted notebooks, how he tried and consistently failed to sneak a peek at any of her drawings. 

Naturally, their first real interaction is explosive.

“You’re avoiding me,” Clarke states, dropping her bag on the counter, hands flat on the desk as she stares him down. He can feel people’s eyes on them.

“I’m not avoiding you,” he lies, straight through his teeth. She doesn’t know she’s right, so she has no reason to be this mad. “Lower your voice, we’re still in a library.”

Clarke scoffs, shaking her head lightly to herself. “Are you going to stand there and tell me I’m crazy, Bellamy?”

“You’re not,” he admits, because even if he can’t tell her the whole truth, he can’t lie to her about this. He flinches. “It’s just -- I ran into one of your exes.” Technically not a lie.

Her nostrils flare, fingers curling on top of the desk. Some students are still looking into their direction, whispering to each other. “What happened to me not being the opinion of someone who doesn’t know me.”

“God, fuck. It’s not--” Bellamy cuts himself off, running one hand through his hair as his eyes flit over her face. It’s not about that, because _obviously_ he can’t tell her the real reason, but it kind of is. Lexa’s words have been playing on loop in his mind since their encounter, telling him he’s nothing to Clarke, that she’s hooking up with other people. Which, he can’t admit to either. They’re not together, she doesn’t owe him anything. It’s complicated. “It’s about _me._ It’s me not being the opinion of someone who doesn’t know me.”

Clarke deflates, pulling her hands back enough so they fall down limply at her sides. “She got in your head.”

He frowns, a slight shake to his head. “How do you--”

“Because I know her,” she interrupts, exasperation in her tone. More resigned, quieter, “I don’t know what she told you but, Lexa -- she has a way with words. There’s no doubt in my mind she’ll be a great lawyer, or maybe even a politician one day, but she’s also manipulative. She would put everything and everyone above me, and then call me co-dependent when I called her out on it. She made me feel small, all the time, and I’d--” She breaks off for a second, clearing her throat before softly pressing, “I’d hate for you to feel that way too.”

Standing there, looking straight in her bright blue eyes, it’s a nightmare and a dream come true at the same time. She cares about him. Genuinely gives a fuck about his well-being. Enough to be upset when he doesn’t speak to her for a week. Enough to be angry on his behalf. 

“I’m sorry, okay,” Bellamy replies, suddenly finding his throat thick with emotion. He wants nothing more than to move on from this conversation, scared he’ll say too much, or ruin it all. His hand reaches out to squeeze her shoulder over the counter. “My shift is over in fifteen minutes. Save me a seat? I’ll quiz you on your Art History exam.”

Clarke raises her eyebrows. “I already took my Art History exam.” Which he would know, if he hadn’t -- he gets her point.

Bellamy rolls his eyes, half-heartedly. “Then I’ll sit there and listen to you explaining the various reasons why I’m an asshole for thirty minutes straight.”

“Sounds like a date,” she smirks, leisurely, slinging her bag over her shoulder. Bellamy makes a strange noise in the back of his throat at the mention of the word ‘date’, because, _fuck_ the universe, man. 

All he can do is stare dumbly at her retreating form, watching her install her books on one of the empty tables in the back, not sure how to come out of this on the other side. He genuinely never thought that one day he would have the power to hurt her. He thought it was easy money, pretend he’s hanging around her a few times, then call it a day once she realized she could spend her time in so many better ways. 

He never considered -- he never considered _her_. He never considered her laugh could turn out to be his sole objective for the day, or the kind of thrill it would give him if her arm brushed his by accident. It’s fucking ridiculous.

After spending the good part of an hour discussing the merits and demerits of being the Bachelorette and ignoring Miller’s subtle glaring into their direction whenever they get too loud, the two of them get dinner at a little Chinese restaurant a few blocks away from campus. Clarke picks out all her mushrooms and slides them onto his plate and Bellamy makes good-natured fun of her being in need of a deep-conditioning after her two bad dye-jobs in the span of a day fiasco a few weeks ago. They take home their left-overs for Octavia, and Clarke throws in a few fortune cookies which his sister puts all over her Instagram story. When he walks her back to his dorm, their hands keep brushing in between them. 

It’s the best day he’s had for the entire shitty Clarke-less week. Maybe in a while.

Since he’s already a liar, he doesn’t feel bad about forgetting to let Lexa know.

_ THE POWERPUSS MONSTERS  _

Alexandra DuFort: I saw you today.

Bellamy: Ominous

Alexandra DuFort: You need help flirting.

Bellamy: Lmao? I definitely don’t need help in that department lol

Alexandra DuFort: You two fought for half an hour straight.

: Seriously?

+1 (202) 558 0101: told u guys we shudve ?? the other librarian instead

+1 (202) 558 0101: he was hotter anyway

Bellamy: I’m IN the groupchat, dumbass

Bellamy: I don’t need help flirting

Bellamy: Especially not from you guys

Bellamy: Also, not a fucking librarian

: A little advice never hurt anyone

+1 (202) 558 0101: seriously dude i think she friendzoned u

Bellamy: You guys say that, yet your little princess is already back in my DMs asking to hang out again

Alexandra DuFort: Where are you taking her?

Bellamy: Mind your business

+1 (202) 558 0101: quite lit our business since were paying u

Bellamy: Read 05:04 PM 

+1 (202) 558 0101: do u think im stupid???

Bellamy: Yes

He chucks his phone at the wall, figures the spiderweb screen can’t crack any worse than it already has. Fuck their terms. They suck. 

* * *

“You were still here?” Bellamy asks, just as he’s doing his final sweep of the place before locking up. She’s leaning against the wall by the stairs in the back, looking half asleep. 

Every time his heart squeezes at the sight of her he’s been telling himself that this time he’ll come clean. But then the moment ends, and he remembers something stupid, like how Octavia’s prom is coming up, and he never got to go, and it’s important for her to feel like a normal teenager, and she’ll need tickets and a dress, and he can’t physically get himself to form the words. 

“Midterms,” Clarke yawns, knocking her shoulder into his before following him towards the door. 

“Sounds terrible,” he agrees, locking the building before following her down the steps into the direction of her dorm. 

She shrugs, lazy, pulling the sleeves of her cobalt hoodie further down her hands, curling her fingers into them. “I didn’t even get that much work done because all I could focus on was getting this one drawing right.”

“Can I see?” Bellamy pries, curious, despite knowing better. She’s blown him off every time he asked to see any of her work up close, so except from across the table while she was hunched over it, he hasn’t seen much of it. 

“Just this once,” she relents, probably sleep-drunk, fishing for her sketchbook in her tote bag. She skips to a page somewhere near the back, right where it looks like she’s ripped out a few drawings. He slows, then stops walking as he takes it in.

It’s Wells, who he recognizes from the pictures she’s shown him. It’s his side-profile, from the shoulders up. His back is made out of what he can best describe as dripping flowers. It’s very detailed, the look on his face haunting in a beautiful way. 

“They’re, uh, hyacinths and violets. They stand for forgiveness,” she explains, quietly, some of her earlier sleep-infused bravado gone and just leaving vulnerability in it’s wake. Her gaze is fixed on the sketchbook. “He always believed in me, told me he thought I was going to change the world someday. He was so kind, and good, you know? Always forgave me for everything, no matter how ridiculous. I haven’t really been honouring that part of him. And lately, ever since --” She bites her lip, eyes flicking over to him. “I’m trying to work on that, you know? Forgiving myself.”

He’s kind of stunned, unable to look away from the drawing. “This is really good, Clarke. _Shit_.” Bellamy’s eyes lift to meet her gaze, although they drop down twice more before finally succeeding. “Have you ever considered--”

Clarke brushes him off. “It’s not _that_ good. I know it’s not. I got into the game too late for me to have any technical skills, my composition is mediocre at best and my shading is way, way off. It’s mostly just stress relief.” She shrugs, carefully taking the book back from him, brushing her thumb over the page softly. “And it helps, to remember him.”

“I think it’s great,” he argues, not just for the sake of arguing. He really does think this piece is amazing. He thinks _she’s_ amazing. “And even if you don’t, you could still consider going into an art direction. You don’t have to be the next Michaelangelo, you could teach. Or do therapy or something.”

She physically reels back, a lot more awake now, hugging the collection of drawings to her chest. “Me? The girl who needs a second therapist to complain about the first one?”

He rolls his eyes. She has so much potential, even more opportunities. He can’t believe she doesn’t realize that half of the time. “It seems to me that your art helps _you_ a lot, princess. You always seem much lighter after you’ve been lost in your sketchbook for an hour.” He lifts a shoulder, scrunching up his nose for a second as they slowly return to walking across the courtyard. “Why shouldn’t you be able to help someone else do that? I’ve never met anyone as empathetic as you.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Clarke trails off, and she really does seem to consider it for a moment. Then she knocks her elbow into his ribs, hard, an obvious and not so discreet change of subject. “When are you going to stop calling me princess? It’s getting kind of old.”

“Huh,” Bellamy says smugly, “Maybe I’ll just call you Miss Academic Probation instead then.”

She scoffs in protest. “You don’t even know _why_ I’m on probation.”

He raises his eyebrows, unphased. “You destroyed school property while high, princess.”

“That’s the short version.”

“So tell me the long version.”

Clarke sighs deeply, fingers tightening around the edges of her sketchbook briefly. For a second, he thinks about the masks Lexa said she had, and he’s scared she’s going to shut down, but then her shoulders deflate and she tentatively starts sharing. “Me and Wells -- we were fighting. About something stupid.”

Bellammy empathizes, “I’m sure it wasn’t stupid.”

“Believe me, it was,” Clarke says with a hint of self-deprecating humour, one of her hands rubbing her forehead briefly as an amused smile at his defense flicks across her lips for just a moment before it’s gone again. “It was about my mom manipulating him into getting me to go to one of her dumb charity galas.”

He smiles, it’s the kind of stuff you can only fight about with someone you truly care about it. Petty teenager stuff. “Okay, _kind_ of stupid.”

She returns the gesture, but it’s only there for a second before it’s gone again, losing herself in the memory. “I called him a push-over. He was driving and, out of nowhere, there’s this car. The driver ran a red light.” Her brows furrow together, and she looks at him, but her eyes are clouded, like she’s still lost in thought. “I just wonder all the time if -- if it was different--”

Bellamy’s heart squeezes in his chest, making his breath catch before he cuts her off, “You can’t do that to yourself, Clarke.” 

She shakes her head, as if she doesn’t want to believe it. “People at school assumed for some reason that I was the one driving.” Her tongue dips out, wets her chapped lips as she readjusts the strap of her tote before hugging the book closer. “And I never said anything, because in a way it was my fault anyway, so what did it really matter.” She smiles, trying to keep up a brave face, but it wobbles, and then her eyes are glazing over with tears. “But I never -- you can only hear people call you a monster for so long until you start to believe it.”

“Yeah…” Bellamy agrees, still trying to process everything, his brain racing with a million thoughts all at once. He doesn’t know how he and Clarke, this girl that couldn’t be more different from him in every way he could ever imagine, ended up feeling exactly the same at one point in their lives.

His mom overdosing is the easy explanation of how she died. Technically it’s the real version of events. How he kicked her out of the house for being high around Octavia again and told her not to come back, that was the harder one. It played a part in the _why_ , even though he didn’t force her to take anything, he didn’t get her help either. It’s a guilt he still carries with him.

She sniffs, rubbing at her nose with the inside of her wrist. “Thelonious has given me so many passes. He lost his son, and he doesn’t want to lose me too.” Her eyes flick back over to his, and they’re clearer, but then they’re not again as she starts her next sentence, voice breaking, “But I’m lost, all the time.”

He doesn’t know how he finds his voice, still kind of stunned and having his entire world tilted upside down, but he does, and it’s surprisingly strong and determined, showing her a kindness he hasn’t often lended to himself. “You don’t have to have it all figured out, Clarke.” 

A single tear falls down her cheek, glistening under the streetlights, and she hastens to wipe it away with her sleeve, giving him a look that breaks his heart. “The day -- it was my first day back after the accident. In class they told us we would be testing the effects of environmental influences on mice and then dissecting them after a week. Like some cruel joke, it was the anniversary of my dad’s death. Before class I had another fight with my mom about something I don’t even remember, because we were both too stubborn to just admit we needed each other.” 

Bellamy pulls on her elbow to get her to stop walking, so he can look at her properly. Up until this point her voice had been distanced, steady, as if the day was a distant memory from someone else’s story. Now she squeezes her eyes shut, a tremble in her tone, “I got lost in that feeling again. The helplessness. I couldn’t stop thinking about those mice. How they were waiting to die, how they had no control.” She swallows, hard, shaking her head lightly to herself, eyes fixed somewhere off to the side. “So I drank because I didn’t want to confront my grief. And I used the pills they gave me for my knee after the accident, because I didn’t want to confront how I wasn’t confronting anything. And then I decided to free the mice.”

She reached her breaking point. Anyone would, after everything she went through. So she made a dumb mistake. Everyone has. He isn’t saying there shouldn’t be consequences, but she isn’t beyond redemption. And he tries to think of how to put that into words, how to make her understand. 

“I have done stupid shit out of grief before,” Bellamy blurts out his first coherent thought. It’s not a competition or anything, but talking with Clarke, he constantly wants to meet her, reach the same level of vulnerability to show her she’s not alone, that they’re in together. “When my mom died I spent almost all of the little money we got from the jewelry she left us on taking Octavia to Disneyworld, just so I could see her smile.”

“That’s not stupid,” Clarke says softly, her cheeks still wet, but her eyes clearer now, somehow compassionate despite everything. “It’s actually kind of sweet.”

“When we came back I dumped her at one of her friend’s house and went to a bar to pick a fight, just to feel something,” he explains rationally, although his forehead is crinkled and he still hates himself for who he chose to be in that moment, blinded by his misery. “I was selfish. I didn’t want the responsibility. I risked everything, my sister--” 

He cuts himself off before he breaks down completely, shaking his head. His mouth opens and closes soundlessly, finding Clarke’s eyes. The corner of her mouth turns up, and she reaches up to wipe at the tear that fell down his cheek without him even noticing. She tilts her head slightly, hand slowly dropping down to his shoulder, then his chest, fixating her eyes there for a moment. “You have such a big heart, Bellamy.”

He almost tells her right there and then, heart pounding loudly under her hand. She’s being honest with him, and supportive, and it makes him just want to blurt out and tell her. About everything, the deal and the lies and the money. Bellamy opens his mouth, but she’s talking before he can, “You’re the first person I’ve been able to trust in a long time.” 

She looks shy all of a sudden, maybe even a little shocked by her own confession, her hand dropping down completely before reaching up to tuck a loose strand behind her ear. He feels sick, his stomach churning. Maybe he can just text them, tell them the deal is off. Pretend it never happened.

“Clarke--” Bellamy tries again, but she doesn’t seem to hear him as she tilts up her head, looking at the sky. “I think it’s going to rain,” she says, “We should hurry.” 

They’re in front of her dorm building within less than two minutes. He’s been mulling it over for what feels so much longer than that, and he _can’t_ leave it like this, let her go inside. 

“Thanks for walking me home,” Clarke says, sounding a little unsure, like she doesn’t know how to end the night either. She fumbles awkwardly with her bag, putting the sketchbook in it, and he realizes she’s embarrassed. After sharing such personal things, almost too personal, he often feels ashamed too. He doesn’t know how to deal with that kind of intimacy most of the time, but with Clarke things seem to come kind of naturally. 

Bellamy isn’t a big speech guy usually, unless he’s playing soccer with his friends and losing, or his sister is about to fail another exam she barely studied for, but regardless of how he feels about her, she’s his friend, and she deserves one. 

Clarke is still just kind of staring at him dumbly, waiting for him to say goodbye, and he takes one more good look at her, before the words pour out. “Clarke, for the longest time I woke up every day and looked in the mirror and found a monster staring back at me. Taunting me about how much my mom would hate the person I’ve become. I was angry all the time. I hurt people. I shut them out. My friends, Octavia.” She opens her mouth, probably to tell him it’s okay, but he hurries to beat her to it, “The only way you can let go of the person you were, is by working on the person you are today.” He doesn’t think of himself as especially smart or anything, but he’s read a lot about it, trying to make peace with his past, and even with the person he is today. “My mom always told me that if you slayed your demons during the day, they wouldn’t be able to haunt you at night. So I refused to be afraid any longer. I took responsibility for what I had control over, and tried to let go of what I didn’t.” He meets her ocean gaze, and he forgot what he was trying to tell her, just knows he’s never told anyone this before, and how good and terrifying it feels at the same time to tell someone now. “It’s not easy to forgive yourself. On some days, it seems impossible.”

“It _isn’t_ easy,” Clarke agrees, a crack in her voice. “But you were just a boy when she died, Bellamy. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.” She takes a step closer, tentatively, and he can’t quite decipher her tone, but he can’t stop staring at her either, “Friends, they’re there to help you. And if you need some help, I’ll give it to you. You’re forgiven.”

Something in his chest cracks wide open, spreading warmth straight to his fingertips, and then he’s hugging her, arms around her shoulders as he pulls her closer, burying his face in her neck. Her hands come around him to cling onto his shirt, the corner of her sketchbook sticking from her bag and digging into his side, coming up on her tiptoes to rest her chin on top of his shoulder. Her arms tighten around him, and for the first time in what feels like forever, he feels like he can breathe. His fingers come up to weave into the hair at the base of her neck, as if he might be able to pull her closer than they already are. Truth is, he just likes touching the golden strands of hair, can’t keep himself from doing it. If he squints, he can still make out a vague fuschia tint to the tips and it always smells like a fresh lily pond, a little bit of honey, and something very Clarke. 

It’s not until the first drop of rain falls and shocks their systems that they pull back, laughing as they hurry for cover under the roof by the door. 

“This was very fucking dramatic,” Bellamy concludes, still chuckling as he wipes at his eyes, then pulls on his shirt a few times, as if it’ll help make the rain that’s seeped into the material to disperse. He still feels stupid, but it’s being overpowered by the simple peace that comes with feeling fervently and intrinsically understood. 

Clarke stands a little too close to him as she beams up at him, arms crossed over her chest for warmth. “Life with me is like living in a teenage romcom, didn’t I tell you?” 

Bellamy almost chokes on his own spit with that one, because he’s pretty sure people paying a random stranger to break their ex’s heart is quite literally a movie on Netflix somewhere. One he should maybe watch, to see how he can get himself out of this ten foot shithole he dug himself.

She kisses his cheek, sudden and quick, barely long enough for him to register it before she’s pulled back again. “Thank you,” Clarke says, emphatic, corners of her lips turning up timidly. “I know -- I might not be able to take everything to heart, but it helps.”

“Go inside before I have to take my boombox out, princess.” 

“I’m not sure I want to miss the flashmob.”

“Believe me, you do. There’s a breakdancer.”

One more laugh, and she’s pushing herself into the building, throwing him a wave over her shoulder. Bellamy stands there for another moment, trying to understand how he can feel like the calm before the storm and the storm itself all at once.

* * *

Two weeks.

Two weeks of radio silence. Fourteen days where he hears absolutely nothing from Clarke. Cricket noises, for an entire fortnight. 

He doesn’t want to seem overprotective, or a creep, or worse, needy, so for the first few days he tries to leave it alone. Figures she’s busy, or maybe her mom took her on a surprise retreat to Aspen. Who the fuck knows how rich people spend their holiday bonuses. But then he attempts to text her, and then DMs her on every social media platform he can think of, and even goes so far as to email her from his official Polis U email address, but is left on read an embarrassing amount of times. It’s laughable, really.

Bellamy figures maybe she found out about his less than pure intentions, and ghosting is the least of what he deserves. Although he pegged her to be more confrontational than that, he wouldn’t know how he would act if he found out someone did something like that to him. But like, _one_ single sign of life would be nice. Just one. 

Right about the time he starts spiraling and considering calling the police, he sees her on campus. His breath catches in the back of his throat, watching her Work on her homework in the courtyard instead of her usual spot in the library. It dawns on him. Turns out Clarke isn’t dead somewhere in a ditch, she just doesn’t want to see _him_. 

And then she shows up at his door. 

It has all the dramatics of the climax of a sappy Netflix movie. Thunder in the distance because it’s storm season. Clarke, damp from the rain, looking vaguely apologetic, all pleading eyes. Bellamy did the whole pathetically pining montage for the past two weeks just fine. The only thing missing is a song from Lauv. 

In lieu of a greeting, she holds up her hands in defense and starts with, “I know you’re mad at me.”

Bellamy’s grip on the door handle tightens, although he tries to keep his face straight. “I’m not mad, Clarke. I was worried sick.”

Standing there, shivering from the cold in just a thin sundress, her eyes dart around and land anywhere but on him. “I just -- I really need you right now.”

She needs _him_ , and the words pull at something deep inside him, twisting something in his gut and making his pulse stutter. It’s ridiculous.

“Oh,” he says, at first, stupidly, tilting his head back as he processes it, brain short-circuiting. “Okay.” He scoffs, tic in his jaw as he tugs on his hair in frustration. “So now you _need_ me, you’ve suddenly remembered where I live?” 

Clarke stares at him, and one might even think she looks amused under all the general upsetness. 

“Okay, maybe I’m a little mad,” Bellamy admits, bristling. He scrubs a hand over his face, because this is exhausting. This thing between them, it was one of the simplest things he had going for him. And now it’s all messy and he doesn’t know where to begin to unravel it. “But I don’t _want_ to be mad with you.”

“I’m sorry for flaking.” Clarke makes a frustrated sound, hugging herself. Her lips dart out to wet her lips, teeth briefly biting into the bottom one, and she looks equal amounts of apologetic and uncomfortable. “It’s just -- we were spending a lot of time together, and I… I was getting attached.”

This seems like a lot to debunk on his porch while she’s shivering from the cold and his lasagna is probably burning, so he steps aside, opening his door further. Reluctantly, she follows him inside. 

“Octavia is taking a nap upstairs,” he says, when he notices the searching look in her eyes as they flit around his small house. The vacuum cleaner is still in the middle of the hallway, since he’d planned on stress cleaning later.

He leaves her in the kitchen for a second, disappearing into the bathroom to get her towel. She accepts it gratefully, avoiding his gaze as she starts slowly dabbing at her face, her neck next. 

“All of your unnecessary commitment issues aside, what happened?” Bellamy pushes, once he can’t stand the awkward silence anymore, leaning back against the counter. She looks like a wreck. Her navy dress is wrinkled, long sleeves pulled over her hands, her usually carefully styled hair is pulled into a messy bun. Not the artfully messy ones either, just messy. And sadly limp, from the rain.

Clarke cringes, just holding the towel to her chest. “Someone told my mom I was pregnant.” 

His eyes bulge, and he realizes he should’ve really read some of the group chat messages instead of sulking around for the better part of a month. Clarke mistakes it for something else, taking a small step closer and hastily adding, “I’m not. _Pregnant_.”

Bellamy twists around and turns off the oven, figuring this conversation is going to take longer than he initially assumed. Managing, with his back still to her, “I would be happy for you if you were.” And out of his mind jealous. And perhaps a tiny bit suicidal. But all of that aside, he could probably find it within him to be genuinely excited for his friend. 

“Well, I’m not. Thank God.” She lets out a relieved sigh, probably taking his statement as a good sign, relaxing a little more. “But, my mom thought I was, and she already thinks I’m a screw up.” His kitchen and living room are directly connected, so she falls onto his couch with a small thud, rubbing her temples, towel in her lap. “Her reaction was -- less than favorable. And then I got mad she wasn’t ecstatic about my hypothetical pregnancy and -- now I think I’ve broken us for good.”

Bellamy tentatively makes his way over to her, sitting down beside her. Despite being kind of mad but not wanting to be, he still feels the need to make sure she knows she’s not what her mom perceives her to be. “You’re not a screw-up.”

“That’s --” Clarke breaks off, shaking her head lightly as the corner of her mouth turns up. “Thanks. I like how your knee jerk reaction is to defend me, but I kinda am.” She full-on smiles now, although she slumps back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m a college senior without a definite major. No job or future prospects, a non-existent love life, I use sex as a subsitute for real intimacy, my only living parent hates me, and I don’t even know how to maintain a simple friendship without fucking it up completely because of my own insecurities.”

Again, lots to unpack there. 

“You didn’t fuck up our friendship,” he declares, knocking his knee into hers as he stares at her side-profile, eyes following the curve of her nose as he carefully watches her face for any and all reactions. “And your mom doesn’t hate you. She’ll get over you being a loser, and if she doesn’t we’ll make sure she knows she’s missing out on all her first grandchild’s milestones.” 

Clarke snorts, finally turning her head to raise her eyebrows at him. “Very funny.”

“I thought so,” he muses, then he softens, turning more serious. “I didn’t realize you were so stressed about not having a major.”

He always figured she had some great end goal, not a path she would miraculously stumble upon, but forge herself. She’s Clarke Griffin. Kinda just seems like something she would do. 

She sighs, lifting herself up so she’s sitting sideways, leaning all her weight on her shoulder. “I wasn’t, until my mom reminded me how much of an epic disaster I am and how disappointed my dad would be if he was here today.”

Bellamy frowns, then scoffs. “That’s a low blow. She’s definitely uninvited to the gender reveal party.”

“We’re not having one of those,” she returns, somberly, but there’s the hint of a smile on her face. “Gender is a social construct.”

He nudges her foot with his, grinning. “That’s why the cake was going to be green on the inside.”

“Great,” Clarke declares, snorting, giving him a dumbfounded look. “So people can make fun of me online for fucking Shrek?”

Bellamy huffs, actually considering it as his eyebrows jump. “At least Shrek would be an upgrade from Collins.”

She laughs, a surprised burst, and then it turns kind of watery and she’s muttering an apology into her hands as she uses them to cover her face. “This is so stupid. I told her she’s a terrible person, and an even worse mom. I said I wished she’d died instead of my dad, I--” Her whole body erupts into sobs, shaking. 

His stomach churns at the sight of her. He tugs her hands down from her face, careful, pulling her head into his chest, nails scraping her skull soothingly. “It’s okay.”

“Ever since Wells died… I just wish -- I wish she’d stop seeing me as this fragile little child. I wish she’d be supportive of me and didn’t make me feel like her love was conditional based on how successful I am in life.” She sniffs, more frustrated tears dripping from her eyes. “I hate how it’s so easy to tell you this, but every time I’m face to face with my mom I just want to strangle her. Ever since my dad died, it’s just like we’re never on the same page anymore.”

“You know… It seems to me like you guys love each other a lot, but you don’t know how to talk to each other,” Bellamy offers, considering it sounds a lot like how it used to be between him and Octavia after their mom died. A lot of unspoken resentment tends to fester, and festered things either need to be removed or they end up taking you down with them. “Maybe, after both of you have calmed down, you can try and tell her this? Or maybe you could write it down, sometimes that helps.” 

He could never afford therapy, so he watched a lot of Dr. Phil videos and it’s where he learned that trick. It actually helped him a lot, no matter how dumb it sounded.

She nods, slowly, pulling away from him, brows furrowing together. Her hands tremble as she uses them to smooth out the bottom of her dress. “I’m sorry. For crying.” She tilts her head, amusement mixed with exasperation. “And being a general mess. And having so many issues.” 

He offers, “And for disappearing for two weeks?”

She presses her lips together in a closed-mouthed smile. “And for disappearing for two weeks.”

“It’s alright,” he promises quietly, carefully wiping at her tears with the sleeve of his henley. “I like you exactly like this. Makes my life seem so regular and well-adjusted. My problems truly pale in comparison to yours.”

She smiles, and it fades slowly as he sees all the walls they just broke down come back up, dread filling her eyes. His hand stills where it’s cupping her jaw, thumbing away a tear on her chin. Suddenly he gets the feeling this isn’t just about her mom anymore. “I just -- it’s easier, you know?” She sniffs, and he drops his hand, meeting her eye. Her gaze is sincere, insistent, breaking through every last of his defenses. He swallows hard, as she adds, “To run away from it.”

“I know, but you don’t have to. I’m not going anywhere.” Bellamy puts his arm around her, and his heart stutters as she leans her head against his chest, pulling her feet up onto the couch. His hand comes up to cup the back of her head, stroking her hair. “You want to stay for dinner?”

“Always,” she mutters, a lighter tone to her voice now, kicking off her shoes before snuggling closer to him, probably trying to absorb some of his body heat. Her nose is cold against the side of his neck. “Can we -- can we just stay like this, first? Just for a while?”

  
His heart squeezes and flips and stutters and swells and does all sorts of crazy things he can’t quite put into words. He’s in even deeper than he thought.

“Always,” he echoes, and he feels her mouth twitch against his collarbone.

Bellamy checks the group chat once she’s asleep in his lap, softly running his fingers through her now dry and partly untangled hair. Her chest rises and sinks softly against his lower abdomen, her mouth slightly open. She looks peaceful like this, protected. He never -- he wants to keep her like this forever, not be the reason it’s all taken away. 

Maybe he’s taken a page from Clarke’s book for too long now, running from his problems instead of facing them head-on. It’s not like Lexa, Niylah and Finn are just going to go away. He forces himself to read up on all the messages he’s been ignoring for too long. 

_ CHARLIE’S GREMLINS  _

: Can we get an update, pls?

+1 (202) 558 0101: like ASAP

Alexandra DuFort: You cannot just keep ignoring us.

+1 (202) 558 0101: hello????? have u gone full simp or sumn????

: You can’t just go MIA for two weeks 

Alexandra DuFort: There’s an agreed upon verbal contract, Blake. There’s terms you need to fulfill. 

He skims through them pretty quick. They all seem to pretty much be in the same vein, wondering where he’s been and how he’s going to help them ruin Clarke’s life. It’s fucking insane the more he thinks about it.

Bellamy locks his phone eventually, putting it face down on the arm of the couch and using his now free hand to run it over his face, thinking it over. Exactly like he’s been thinking about it for a while now. Right now, he thinks that if he can just have her, like this, for a little longer, everything will be fine. And he’s thought a lot about how those people in five-thousand BC weren’t that far off. His heart plays a big part in most of the decisions he makes. 

And he _thinks_ , looking down at the beautiful, brilliant girl snoring softly in his lap, that she holds most of it right in the palm of her hand.

* * *

Bellamy doesn’t even think before he blurts it out, waiting in line for coffee with Clarke. He doesn’t like to spring money on luxuries like terrible coffee with too much sugar in it most of the time, but he helped Clarke study for her Advanced Chemistry exam for three hours straight and she wanted to treat him to the campus coffee shop’s overpriced lattes as a thanks. 

It wasn’t exactly free labor, because he was at his job, but it was _boring_ labor, so he took the deal. 

It’s almost their turn, when a thought occurs to him. Octavia is staying over at a friend’s house, and he still has way too much mac and cheese leftovers in the fridge for himself. If he had any common sense or even a shred of will power, he’d limit the time he spends with Clarke, but he doesn’t, so, “Do you have plans tonight?”

“Do I have to remind you I have no friends?” Clarke says after placing their order, handing the barista her shiny silver credit card, her arm brushing against his with the movement.

“That’s not true.” He clears his throat, awkwardly. Although his first reaction is to make her feel better, he’s actually struggling to come up with anything. Scratching the back of his head, he tries, “You have that one guy. Uhm, he’s in your bio lab, with the shaggy hair and that big smile. _Oh_ \--” He lights up for a victorious second before his entire expression sours at realizing what he’s _actually_ winning here. “And Roan.”

Frat boy king who comes from old money, looks like Diego from Ice Age and always hangs around her whenever he decides to crawl out of his sex cave long enough to remember he has lectures to attend. He always makes up excuses about the homework for the one class he shares with her, lowkey making jokes about shit like bondage and being disowned by their mothers and actually getting her to laugh. He pisses Bellamy the fuck off. 

Clarke sends him a fond smile, shooting him an amused glance out of the corner of her eyes. “You don’t even know Monty’s name and I’m pretty sure Roan just wants to fuck me to complete his frat’s bingo card by checking off someone on the LGBT spectrum.”

Bellamy opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, someone coughs behind them. “Slut.” Although her shoulders stiffen slightly, Clarke doesn’t even flinch, just accepts her card back from the barista with a smile. What the hell. 

He frowns, turning to find two girls giggling conspiratorially to themselves. One of them sees him looking, sending him a smug smirk. _Oh fuck that_. His nostrils flare and then he blurts it out just like that, “Don’t you have some plan B to gobble down after sleeping with half the French department including professor Wallace, Bree?” He narrows his eyes, enjoying the way she gapes at him, completely flustered. “I mean, I admire your hustle as much as anyone else, all the power to you for scamming your way to a college degree, but I think it’s a little funny when this is an obvious case of the hypocritical pot calling the kettle black, huh?”

Bree kind of stammers for a second, cheeks turning tomato red as she sends an humiliated glance over to her friend. Then he turns back around, forgetting all about her. Serves her right. 

He doesn’t think much of how it just rolled off of him like that, like a natural instinct, or how he’s still seething so much taking his first sip of coffee that he burns his tongue. He doesn’t think much of the stunned look on Clarke’s face -- the widening of her eyes before it’s overtaken by a small upwards tug of her lips -- either. He refuses. 

Clarke snatches her coffee cup off the counter quickly, following him outside. “How the hell did you know...”

“Like I said, librarians are right under bartenders. You’d be surprised what kinda shit you overhear while filing away books.” Bellamy’s going for lighthearted, but it ends up sounding kind of bitter. He rolls his eyes, still fired up on adrenaline and hatred but trying to keep it under control. “The other day she loudly wondered if you could overdose on Plan B.”

“Library technician,” she corrects him, and when he looks at her, beaming reverently, his breath catches. 

Bellamy looks away, brows crinkling together. “You shouldn’t let them talk about you like that.”

“I don’t mind,” Clarke argues, genuinely sounding calm, not upset in the slightest. More tired, if anything. “Honestly it’s more draining to engage than to just ignore it. Besides, like you said -- their opinion doesn’t really matter.” She squeezes his forearm, brief, a sweet smile on her face. “But thank you, for standing up for me.”

It does make him feel better, to know she’s found her own way to cope with it, and it makes his shoulders sag, his jaw relax. “What are friends for?”

“Free coffee.”

He snorts, then lets it all sink in for a moment. “Huh.”

She quirks an eyebrow, taking a sip of her latte. “What?”

“Kind of pathetic, you know?” Bellamy starts, stifling a grin. She tilts her head, curious, watching him. “Your only friend is the library technician.”

She slaps him in the arm, but he takes pride in the small laugh bubbling from her lips. “I just keep you around for all the free therapy.”

The text message waiting for him when he gets back from his break, however, brings him nothing but misery.

_ THE PLASTICS  _

Alexandra DuFort: The Media Centre. 01:15 PM.

Obviously, he leaves them on read, so they come to terrorize him at his job instead. He’s sick and tired of these assholes. 

“Have you forgotten what she’s done?” Finn starts, after fifteen minutes of lectures about ‘breach of contract lawsuits’ and ‘common decency’. Seriously, fuck off. Nothing about any of this is decent. 

“Maybe you need to enlighten me,” Bellamy grits, shoving a book back into place a bit too roughly. “I could _really_ use a refresher on why you guys are so bitter.”

Niylah seems most offended by the bitter part, pain flashing across her eyes. It doesn’t make her better than the other two, and he hopes she knows that. “She wanted to be friends with benefits, and then the second I tried to have a serious conversation with her about how much time we were spending together, she ghosted me.”

Ghosting, definitely an asshole move, but not worth any of _this_. He scoffs, thumbing through a novel to look for any defacements without even really registering anything. He just pushes it in between some books, not even sure if it belongs there. Sourly, he responds, “Sounds to me like she was pretty up front about the fact it was only sex.”

Niylah glares at him, or at least, it feels like she is, and then Mr. Swim Team Captain is getting heated, throwing up an arm, “She is a two-timing--”

Bellamy snorts mirthlessly, cutting him off. “Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

Finn just stammers something Bellamy’s positive isn’t worth listening to, so he turns to the third person in their midst. Lexa is strangely quiet, doesn’t really offer him her motivation for any of this. Instead, she blinks at him slowly, before her green eyes narrow slightly. “You fell for her.”

“What?” He spits immediately, glaring at her. Over his dead body he’ll ever admit to that. This has nothing to do with what he does or doesn’t feel about Clarke. It’s about what they’re willing to do to her over fucking petty, vindicative, meaningless _shit_. He should know, since he’s a firm believer in holding grudges. “Of course not.”

Lexa looks unconvinced, and he can tell she’s getting to Finn and Niylah, with the way their wary eyes flit between the two of them. “It appears to me like you can’t separate feelings from duty.”

“Duty? _Duty?_ Do you hear yourself speak?” He whisper-barks, fingers tightening dangerously around the handle of the trolley in front of him, straining to keep his voice down. Like he struggles to defend Clarke without showing them how far gone he truly is. “She’s just a girl. And yeah, she fucked all of you over, but she doesn’t deserve--”

“What?” Finn cuts him off, and Bellamy honestly forgot he was even there. The certified pretty boy’s fingers curl into fists, like he could actually take him. What a clown. “Deserve for some foodstamp loser like you to take a lousy paycheck to fuck her?”

He’s got some nerve.

Bellamy is one sentence away from losing it completely, but he’s still at work, and he can’t fucking afford to be laid off. His brain struggles to put into words exactly how much Finn’s rhetoric bothers him. “That’s not -- I haven’t even fucked her.” 

Jesus fucking Christ? Was that all she was to him? A warm body with no autonomy? Good enough to fuck, but not good enough to break up with his girlfriend for? So the comedian’s ego couldn’t stand it that she decided to skip the whole two minute trademarked Collins shtick and find someone else. Clarke is -- she is so much more than that. She’s funny in a very dry way, and compassionate beyond belief, and she has a mean streak, but is never unnecessarily _malicious_ , except for that one time she made fun of his white jacket for no reason but the fact she’s a sore loser. She’s intelligent, and she has her walls up but once you manage to break them down she’s so incredibly earnest, and she’s maybe the most resilient person he’s ever met. If he doesn’t exclude himself from this narrative, he’ll blow up. And if he blows up, he’ll lose his job. So he walks away.

Finn is the only one who follows him. “Unbelievable,” he curses, then demands, “But you know what, you’re going to pretend you want to for a little while longer, or I’ll just tell Clarke you only hang around her because you’re getting paid for it.”

Bellamy keeps his back to him, gritting his teeth together. “Maybe you’d be better off telling your girlfriend you’re a gigantic tool.”

He scoffs, unfazed. “I’m serious, Blake. I can’t imagine what your contract says about taking payment from students, but--”

Bellamy turns, seething, nostrils flaring as he digs his fingernails into his palms, hoping to ground himself long enough for the murderous urge currently running through his veins to pass. “Get out.” 

The douchebag crosses his arms over his chest, as if taking a stand. “I’m not kidding.”

“i know you’re not,” Bellamy allows, trying to put it as calmly as possible, “But I’m working, so I’m _telling_ you, get the fuck out before I call campus police on your ass and they throw you out.”

Finn opens his mouth as if to protest, but then finally gives in, turning on his heel to join his scheming friends with his tail between his legs. Bellamy storms into the back office, kicking one of the trash cans so it flies against the wall, contents spilling everywhere. _Fuck._ He sinks down on the floor, hands in his hair. He’s not sure how much longer he can keep this shit up, he’s running out of time. 

* * *

“Guess who got suspended?” Clarke tells him, licking peanut butter off a spoon. _Okay_. 

Bellamy just blinks at her from the other side of the kitchen counter, keys still in his hand.

“Octavia let me in,” she explains, then turns sheepish at the look on his face. “I’m sorry, I though it’d be okay--”

“It is,” he confirms, putting his keys in the bowl on the counter. He shakes his head lightly, trying to get the image of Clarke in his kitchen, licking a spoon, out of his mind. Wearing an oversized hoodie that looks like it’s his, and a cap that says ‘ _women want me, fish fear me_ ’. “I’m just not sure whether to ask first about the hat or the suspension.”

“It was my dad’s,” Clarke explains off-handedly, then drops her spoon back in the jar of peanut butter, wiping her hands on her yoga-pants clad thighs. Sighing, “I failed my drug test.” She lets out a small chuckle, as if entertained by the state of her own life. “They finally banned me from campus, Clarke Griffin’s prime hunting ground. Now wherever will I find my next prey?”

“Funny,” Bellamy claims, still trying to collect his bearings. Her tongue sliding along the metal bowl of the spoon is on a constant loop in his mind. He’s surprised he isn’t stuttering. “You couldn’t even stay in your dorm?”

“Why?” She wonders, faux-innocently, crossing her arms over her chest, and yeah, that’s _definitely_ his 2018 little league coach hoodie. Bellamy has to stifle a choked sound from the back of his throat. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“No.” Never. He licks his lips, telling himself to get a grip. If his eyes are slightly widened with awe, it’s not on him. “I’m just trying to find out what we’re looking at here. One free pity meal or am I going to have to start charging you for rent?”

Clarke seems to have a plan ready to go, as always. “How about I buy you dinner for three days straight, and then just we share your bed so you don’t have to start mentioning me on your tax returns.”

She grins brightly, all naive and ignorant to her own torturous ways, and he’s literally standing there, dying. The best he can manage is, “Sounds good,” before he sobers, returning to reality. A reality in which she seems to be wholeheartedly overcompensating. His face softens, and he rests his elbows on the counter, leaning forward as he searches her face. “How are you really?”

“I’m fine,” she promises, corners of her mouth turned up in amusement as she taps her fingers along the cheap fake marble counter, making her way around it. To her credit, there’s no crack in her armor this time. Maybe she really is okay. “Truly,” she reinforces, leaning her hip against the stool beside him. “Thelonious is trying to set a standard. He said he couldn’t keep making excuses for me, that it would look like favoritism.”

Praying she doesn’t come closer, afraid her proximity and well, everything about her might be a lethal combination for his mental and physical health at this point, Bellamy deadpans, “God, must suck having your privilege reimposed after a mere twelve warnings just like that.”

“Shut up,” Clarke bites back without any heat, smiling as she pushes against his chest playfully. She shrugs, “I’d agree, if I had actually used any drugs. Except I didn’t, and the test was a false positive, and now my grade for psych is probably gonna flunk because I was supposed to take a test worth half my grade this Friday.”

Bellamy doesn’t know for sure it was _them_ , no message waiting for him in the ‘ _THREE DUMB RATS_ ’ groupchat. It’s been radio silence for days. Maybe they’re covering their tracks, now he’s no longer a trusty member of the Take Down Clarke Society. He never was. He was just their employee.

“Gee Clarke, can we ever talk about _my_ day?” He counters, raising his brows at her teasingly as he reaches out to pinch the muscle where her neck meets her shoulder, until she squeaks and pushes him off, laughing. He steals her hat, and she sticks out her tongue, fixing her hair.

She’s standing closer now, and she tilts her head back to give him a look that’s absolutely sinful. Pouted lips, wide hopeful eyes, slumped shoulders, and although it’s completely implied to be playful and teasing, his mind still kicks into overdrive trying to commit the image to memory for the rest of eternity. “Can I have another hug?”

“Jesus, can’t you get a boy- or girlfriend to do this shit with?” He complains, although he’s already putting the cap down on the counter and opening his arms for her. She steps into them, sighing softly as she rises to her tiptoes. 

“I have you,” she mumbles into his neck, effectively ending the argument. His arms squeeze her waist, once, hers tight around his neck. Then, after a moment of peace, as if something suddenly occurs to her -- she pulls back with narrowed eyes. “Why don’t _you_ have a girlfriend?”

It’s not some big conspiracy theory, although one would think from the calculating look on Clarke’s face. He taps her nose, taking a step back from her to walk over to the fridge. “Because.”

She lifts herself sideways up onto the stool beside her, and he can feel her eyes on him. “Because what?”

He pretends to be invested in the contents of his fridge, even though he knows exactly what sad excuse of food is still left in there. He lifts a shoulder, lazy. “I don’t know. I’m busy.”

She snorts, obviously unimpressed. “Busy doing what? Filing books? Cooking your sister dinner? Hanging with a stoner?”

Bellamy decides to just grab the carton of milk, to try and keep up appearances, taking a swig from the jug. “I thought you said you didn’t take any drugs.’

“I didn’t,” she agrees, voice laced with amusement. “But people say I did, so it must be true.” 

He puts the jug back, picking up the jar of peanut butter to twist the lid back on and discards the spoon in the sink, obviously stalling. It’s pathetic that after all of that, the best he comes up with is still, “I just -- haven’t really been looking.” That, and an awkward shrug/headtilt to boot as he wipes his hands on the back of his jeans.

Why would he? He _has_ Clarke. Not in every way he wants her to, repressing the urge to kiss her more often than not, but in all the ways that count, that are _enough_. He might not have her forever either, considering the amount of shit he put them in, so that just means he’s going to enjoy all the time he has left with her.

“Let’s change that,” Clarke announces, matter-of-factly, jumping off the stool and pulling his phone from his back pocket before marching over to the couch.

“ _Hey_ ,” he warns, following her. She won’t let him take the phone, and he has to sit there and watch her download Tinder for six long minutes in which the wifi connection keeps cutting out. He pretends this is totally okay. Maybe this will help his dumb brain, and even dumber dick, and absolute worthless heart, understand he was never on her radar like _that_. She turned him down the first time they met, he should’ve taken the hint right there and then. 

“She’s cute,” Clarke decides, pausing on a girl with curly brown hair, feet curled beneath her body. Her shoulder digs into his chest pec as they huddle together over his phone. She smells like laundry detergent. “And she’s a bartender, so you can bond over being free therapists together.”

Bellamy frowns at the screen, big hand covering her much smaller one to angle it more towards his face, so he can squint at the picture that pops up as a match is formed. “Did you seriously pick a picture of us both?”

It’s a screenshot of a picture she snapchatted to Octavia, because apparently that’s happening, of the two of them in front of a statue at the museum she took him to see last week. Her arm is hooked around his neck and squeezing his chin, and he’s crushing a brochure against her hip even though it borderline looks like her ass from the angle it was taken, both of them beaming like idiots at the old lady she forced to capture the moment. It’s good, because it’s a full-body candid pic obviously unedited, showing off the complete package, but it’s also _not_ , considering the message it sends. 

“...Yes?” She shrugs, unphased as she blinks at him a few times. “Two birds, one stone.”

He stares at her side-profile as she goes back to serial swiping, dumbfounded, eyes lingering on the curve of her nose, the beauty mark just above her lip. “Anyone with even just a shred of common sense will think we’re looking for a threesome.”

“I’d be in,” Clarke discloses enthusiastically, laughing a little, and she’s joking, but he still feels like dying. If he gets to have her, like that, he would never want to share her. He just grumbles something non-deciperable in response, returning his attention to the screen of his phone.

It’s fun, in a weird, dysfunctional, self-martyring kind of way.

It’s a lot of her slapping him on the thigh in her excitement, before leaving her hand there, telling him, “Fuck, there’s no way he’s not a catfish, but for both our sakes’, you have to find out.” 

And some of, “Dibs on this one,” while swiping right on a small ditzy girl with straight ginger hair or a lanky blonde frat guy who wears white blouses unironically, that look the exact opposite of him. 

_That_ kind of fun. 

“No fucking way,” Clarke snaps, staring at their straight-faced reflection on his phone’s black screen. The battery drained. “We were just getting somewhere!”

Bellamy fishes his phone from her hand, placing it on the side table beside him as he tries to work out the kink that’s started to form in his neck from bending it in an awkward angle for over twenty minutes with his hand. “I’m devastated I don’t get to ditch you for a random Tinder hook-up tonight, princess.”

Clarke sends him a pointed look, then raises her eyebrows to herself, stretching her hands over her head. “Maybe it’s better this way. People who don’t even know me say they slept with me, don’t need to add more to the list.”

Considering she’s been giving it as good as she’s about to receive all night, he decides to stop overthinking and teases like he would anyone else, “So you’ll sleep with imaginary people, but not me?”

“I’ll sleep with you so hard you won’t even remember how to function in the morning,” Clarke opposes challengingly, hitting him in the face with the decorative floral cushion on her other side. She demands, rolling her shoulders back, “Lay down and we can nap.”

“Since I don’t take orders from you, you’re going to have to give me a better reason than just because you said so.”

She purses her lips, staring him down. “I’m tired and you’re a nice pillow.”

Bellamy sighs, snagging the cushion from her lap and putting it down against the arm rest, lowering himself sideways. They barely fit on the couch together, her back flush with his chest and her cheek crushed on his arm that already feels like pins and needles after just two minutes. Yet, he manages to push aside his discomfort long enough to nod off. 

He wakes up in the middle of the night with another kink in his neck. Scratch that, a kink in his entire body. Bellamy slowly shakes her awake, offering his bed to her, but she insists she wasn’t kidding about sharing. Clarke, still half asleep as he leads her up the stairs, hands a deathgrip on his shirt on both of his sides, immediately snuggles into his side when he gets in after quickly brushing his teeth. The both of them doze off for the rest of the night, and in the morning he makes her banana pancakes, one of his favorite two ingredients or less dishes. 

“No comment,” Octavia announces as she stumbles down the stairs, giving Clarke a once over. She takes one bite out of the pancakes on the plate he saved for her and then hurries towards the backdoor with her bag slung over her shoulder, pressing a kiss to his cheek on the way out. She points at him from halfway hidden behind the door. “Bell, don’t forget that field trip fee is due tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I’ll stop by the bank today,” he promises, feeling kind of awkward talking about money in front of Clarke, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Just make sure it doesn’t bounce again,” his sister says pointedly. She flicks her eyes up to the ceiling at the memory, in that way only teenagers can. “That was one humiliating meeting.”

He flashes her a saccharine sweet smile. “Just make sure you actually pay attention to the field trip this time and aren’t discovered macking on Atom off site again.”

Octavia flips him the bird before waving, slamming the door on her way out.

Clarke stabs at her pancakes with her fork, which she’s cut up perfectly with her fork and knife instead of just tearing pieces off like a normal person. “Why didn’t you go to college?”

Wondering where this is suddenly coming from, he swallows his mouthful of food, searching her face, “Huh?’

She looks up from her plate with a small shrug. “You always make such a big deal about Octavia going. You _like_ studying, even when it’s Advanced Biology. Why didn’t you go?”

Bellamy shuts it down, his forehead wrinkling as he averts his gaze at his plate. “It wasn’t for me.”

“Why not?” Clarke urges, crossing her arms over her chest as she leans back in the stool. “You obviously find a college education important, if you’re pushing it on a girl who couldn’t care less about school. I’m confident you’ve read almost all of the books in the library--”

Can’t she just _drop_ it?

“Shit, Clarke, what do you want me to say?” He bites back, curt, voice strained. His runs his hand through his curls, tugging on them in frustration. “I couldn’t fucking afford it.”

She’s not having it. “You’re smart, you could’ve gotten a scholarship.” She makes it sound so -- easy. He guesses it is for some people.

His nostrils flare, and he pushes away his plate, snapping, “And where was I supposed to leave my nine year old sister? Between taking classes and working to put food on the table, or pay the damn gas bill, who was going to look after her?”

The silence that follows is deafening. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles, scrubbing a hand over her eyes before sighing. She sits up, elbows on the counter as she looks at him, wetting her lips as she opens her mouth and then closes it. Finally, full of hesitation, “I just… I just hope that one day, when she looks back -- she realizes how special you are. And I hope that’ll be enough to make up for all of it.”

He’s not mad, looking at her -- he understands. She doesn’t mean it in a bad way. Sometimes he does wish things were different, but they’re not and he’s not going to lie and say he’s miserable. It already is enough, when he hears Octavia’s laugh, knowing she never had to struggle like he did to get to that point. Some things just aren’t meant to be. 

“Look, Clarke, I’m not -- I _like_ my job,” Bellamy declares, frustration still laced in his tone despite his genuinity. He doesn’t know how to convey to her that he really is fine, like this. “I like taking care of my sister and giving her a better life than I ever had. I’m not missing out on anything just because I don’t have an expensive PhD decorating my bedroom wall.”

“You say you want her life to be better than yours, but it could _still_ be better,” she argues, voice rising before her face twists up in aggravation and her fingers tighten around her fork and knife before she drops them. “God, sometimes you talk like you’re tied to a bed in a nursing home and your life is over. You’re not even thirty.”

He’s glad she cares enough, but he really is okay. And it’s kind of a heavy subject to talk about when, despite the amount of hours of sleep he got, it’s still too fucking early o’clock. He’s tired, and he doesn’t _want_ to talk about it anymore when it’s not even an issue to begin with. 

So Bellamy smiles, chuckling to himself as he teases, “Are you going to be my pink-haired pixie dream girl who inspires me, moderately intelligent lowlife criminal, to go back to school, princess?”

“Oh fuck off,” Clarke snaps, without much heat, smiling too hard to convince him there’s any hard feelings. “My hair’s not even pink anymore.”

He rests his hands on the counter, eyes glinting with amusement. “I kind of miss it. You were so much fun back then.”

“Fun? You want some fun? I can be fun,” she declares, slipping sideways off the stool as she scarfs down the remainder of her pancakes with her fork and tells him through a full mouth, “Get out Grand Theft Auto, I’ll beat you right now.”

“You’ll _beat_ me at Grand Theft Auto?” Bellamy wonders, skeptical, but is already making his way across the living room to boot up Octavia’s old xbox.

“Yeah,” she boats, sinking down on the floor in front of his coffee table, starting to pull her -- his -- sweater over her head. “I’ll drive over every pedestrian in the entire city.”

He looks at her over his shoulder, crouched down by the xbox, despite having to watch her get undressed five feet away from him, manages to sound relatively unphased when he says, “You do know that’s not the objective of the game right?”

Clarke drops the sweater beside her, now just in a black top with thin straps. She smooths over the hair on top of her head, tightening her ponytail with a challenging grin. “It is when I’m talented at it.”

He _doesn’t_ look at her now practically bare shoulders, and uncovered collarbone, and the steady rise and fall of her chest. “You’re a psychopath.”

She beams, innocently. “And you slept soundly beside me all night.”

His eyebrows jump, giving her a pointed look before falling down beside her, with his back against the table. “Which you know because you probably watched me sleep, psychopath.”

She pulls the controller from his grasp in the hand furthest away from her, knocking her knee against his and he feels like a perv for the way his dick twitches as the side of her breast brushes against his upper arm. He thought he stopped being that sensitive when he was seventeen. It’s a miracle he’s still functioning at all. 

“No,” she claims, matter-of-factly like she already won the argument, “You’re just an obnoxious snorer.”

For an hour they play -- he does all the shooting and she does all the driving over -- before he regretfully has to leave for work. This is the most fun he’s had in a while, and he really had nothing to do with the fact he finally got to touch a videogame for the first time in months. 

“I guess I’ll go then too,” Clarke offers, once he comes back down from a quick shower, shrugging on his jacket. She looks like the human equivalent of the pleading eye emoji, her voice trailing off.

“You can stay,” Bellamy says, without thinking about it, in hindsight realizing it sounded a bit too eager. “If you want,” he adds, with a clearing of his throat. “Octavia has a tutoring session on Thursday that always runs late, so it’ll just be me for dinner.”

“Okay,” she says, like she was just waiting for him to finish his sentence to say it.

“Okay,” he repeats, even if it feels like there’s a question mark in his voice. Maybe this wasn’t his greatest idea. “Make yourself at home.”

“Okay,” she echoes, stifling a smile.

He worries, now. “There’s not that much food left, but--”

“I’ll be fine,” Clarke presses, waving him off. “Honestly. Beats having to watch the wallpaper dry at my mom’s place.”

Coming home to Clarke, standing in his kitchen royally fucking up something as simple as a deep-dish pizza, it’s a little too domestic. His heart swells, and he has to swallow a few times before he can use his voice.

“I wanted to make you something nice,” she explains sheepishly, once she finishes waving away most of the smoke from his oven with a dish towel and rises to her full height. “As a thank you.”

Bellamy snorts, making a pre-emptive move to shut down the fire-alarm by the backdoor. “So you decided to burn my kitchen down?” When he turns his head to look at her, her eyes are caught on his lower stomach, sliver of skin revealed by the way he’s reaching up to remove the batteries. 

Clarke cringes, her chest flushing, but she’s quick to change the subject. “Will you make fun of me if I tell you that during the two days our cook had time off, we either ordered in or ate out?”

“No doubt about it,” he answers, shaking his head as he smiles, fond. It’s really quite ridiculous, but it’s _Clarke_. “So what was plan B, princess?”

She shrugs, glancing over at the grocery bag on the counter next to the fridge. “Either we eat a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s or I watch you make us tacos. That’s all I got.” 

They cook together, simply because he can’t let anyone go through life not knowing how to cut up a tomato, and joke about how they’d cheat their way through Masterchef. They watch some shitty Netflix documentaries, and play a vindictive game of Uno with Octavia and her friend Mel in which there _were_ people physically harmed, before he ends up in bed with her head on his chest and his blanket completely hogged by her. 

He feels her smile against his shoulder, little huff of laughter spilling from her lips. “Mel definitely has a crush on you.”

“Huh?” He wonders, half-asleep, blinking at the darkness.

“Stop being oblivious. She was giggling and blushing at everything you said. You’re not _that_ funny.”

Bellamy stifles a yawn, squeezing her shoulder teasingly. “I’m _hilarious_.”

Quiet surrounds them. At first he thinks she’s fallen asleep, and he finds himself wondering when sleeping together platonically just became a thing they do. Then she surprises him, breath hot against her skin. “I don’t blame her,” Clarke mumbles, casually, nuzzling her nose against his neck sleepily. His pulse stutters, and he’s surprised she doesn’t notice.

Once he can finally make out her face in the dark and is able to form any coherent words, she’s dozed off. Bellamy’s now wide awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering what exactly she meant by that.

In the morning, she makes him cereal, since there’s no cooking involved, and considering he has the day off, they go see some art exposition Clarke’s been wanting to go to forever. It’s a two hour drive because of traffic jam after traffic jam, and he’s forced to take more pee breaks than he would like to. 

“Boo-hoo, I’m sorry to inconvenience you and youŕ big, manly, male bladder--” Clarke starts after he complains about having to stop at a third gas station in less than an hour and a half, brow furrowed together and lip curled in disdain as she slides off the passenger seat.

His jaw flexes, grip on the gear tightening. “Maybe if you didn’t down a gallon of Arizona in minutes because you expect everyone to cater to your every need--”

She slams the car door, loudly, obviously to make a point, and comes back with two cans of Arizona Green Tea, obviously to make another point. She tosses one in his lap, crossing her arms as she looks out of the window. The rest of the ride is silent, both of them seething quietly.

By the time they enter the studio, the worst of it’s forgiven and forgotten. Bellamy doesn’t think any of the work is particularly interesting, but he likes the way Clarke lights up studying them. The curve in her brow, the slight parting of her pink lips, how her eyes widen just lightly when she notices a detail she especially likes. 

“What?” She asks him, once she inevitably notices he’s looking more at her than the painting on the wall in front of them. 

Because he’s a dick, “There’s still some corn dog stuck to your cheek, princess.”

Clarke swipes at her face mindlessly, rolling her eyes at him. “Is it gone?” 

He reaches out to thumb away the non-existing crumb, lingering along her jawline as he fights a smirk. “You know you basically admitted your everlasting love to me last night?”

Her eyes flick up to his, blinking fast. “What?”

Bellamy tilts his head, putting on a serious face. “Yeah, you wouldn’t stop going on about how Mel was crushing on me and how you understood since I’m so cute, and funny, and sexy, smart, and kind--” It dawns on her, and she starts punching him in the arm while he laughs, swatting her away, “And _so_ humble.”

“This is exactly why I like girls more,” Clarke states, pinching him in the ribs one more time for good measure, even though she’s muffling a laugh herself. “You give a man a single compliment and they start thinking they’re wielding a monstercock that’ll cure cancer and stop global warming.” 

“Now don’t give yourself too much credit,” he says, swinging his arm around her shoulder as they move into the next exhibit. “I had a reputation well before I met you.”

She snorts, unimpressed. “Being your high school’s most popular bicycle doesn’t mean you’re packing. It just means you’re easy.”

“Monstercocks aren’t about size, they’re an energy.”

“Tell that to the person choking on them.”

He quirks a brow, squeezing the back of her neck teasingly. “Are you offering?”

Clarke’s cheek color a pretty pink as she shoves him off, licking her lips. “A sexual harassment charge? Yes.”

It’s late by the time they get back, and he crashes on top of his bed within minutes, belly down. The mattress doesn’t dip for a few moments, and he starts to frown, cheek crushed against his pillow. 

“It’s twelve,” Clarke offers, sounding strangely awake. There’s a small pause before she continues. “Technically I’m allowed back on campus.”

“It’s late,” he mumbles, not bothering to open his eyes as he pats the bed beside him. “Just stay.”

He doesn’t have to actually see her to know she’s worrying her lip. “You don’t mind?”

Fully awake now, he shifts, pushing himself up on his elbow so he can give her a judgmental look, brows jumping. “She asks, after terrorizing my home for the last three days.”

“Please, your quality of life has significantly improved with me here to burn down your kitchen and steal your clothes,” Clarke replies easily, already crawling into bed with him, pulling his arm over her waist as soon as she settles onto her side. She’s soft and warm, and he hasn’t felt this kind of peace in such a long time he doesn’t recognize it at first.

For however sleepy he was before, he’s wide awake now, blinking at the back of her head in the dark. She’s not wrong. But, it’s selfish, how he doesn’t want it to end, and it scares him most of all, how he doesn’t care.

* * *

“Hey,” Bellamy starts, taking a sip of water from the bottle he gets from the fridge before ruffling his sister’s long sleek brown hair where she’s sitting on the couch. “How did your test go?’

“Fine,” Octavia says monotonously, in lieu of greeting, leaning away from his hold. Not looking up from her laptop, she half-heartedly smooths down her hair. “Package came for you.”

“Where?” He wonders, screwing the cap back on the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“Stairs.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes, making his way over to the hallway to pick up the package and make his way up to his room. It’s a simple brown carton box, no labels on it to give away what it could possibly be. Considering he didn’t order anything and his birthday is half a year away, he has no clue. 

He uses a pen to stab through the tape holding it close before pulling it open. Inside is a smaller white box, sporting the Apple logo. He frowns, picking it up from in between the bubble wrap, pulling off the top. It’s a brand-new phone, he realizes belatedly, as if it wasn’t obvious by the packaging. 

He blinks at the phone, a sleek new expensive model, he’s sure, and he knows this only could’ve come from one person. Nobody carries a torch for his current phone like Clarke, and no one in his inner circle has Apple kind of money to spare besides Clarke. He doesn’t think some good samaritan decided to fuck around and give him a break either. 

Bellamy didn’t ask for this, he’s not some poor pity project she has to sponsor for a few good karma points. _What the fuck_. He has to plug in his phone to his charger before he can dial her number, the dial tone distorting before it clears, Clarke throwing out a cavalier ‘hello’. 

“I don’t need any of your hand outs, Clarke,” he snaps, teeth gritted together as he sinks down on the side of his bed, careful not to put too much strain on the wire of his charger, leaning his elbows on his knees.

There’s a stunned silence for a few seconds, before she calmly explains, “It’s not a handout. It’s a thank you.” Another pause, before she pushes through. “For being there for me -- despite what everyone else is saying about me. My reputation--”

God, she’s so fucking annoying sometimes. How many times has he told her? He rolls his eyes to himself, restless from all the aggrevation still running through his veins, making him sound harsher than he intended as he cuts her off, “I dont give a fuck about your reputation, Clarke. I care about you.”

  
“I know. But that doesn’t come naturally to everyone,” Clarke admits, quietly, a certain kind of reverence tinting her voice. Despite himself, he softens, some of the anger draining from his system. He doesn’t know how she does it. He can hear a smile in her voice, “So stop being stubborn and install your phone so I can show you why I _really_ wanted you to have a new one.”

Bellamy rubs his forehead with the pad of his hand, sighing deeply. He mumbles, “Hopefully to send me the receipt because I’m paying you back for this.”

A small laugh escapes her, and then she insists, “I’m going to hang up and let you figure out how to operate a phone from this decade. Speak to you in three days.”

He can’t pretend he isn’t a little excited, safe for the fact he left materialism long behind, it would be cool to have a phone that doesn’t overheat if he spends longer than five minutes at a time on it. Even though iPhones are pretty user friendly, it still takes him around an hour to set it up. He refuses to ask Octavia for help. 

First thing Bellamy does is text Clarke a picture of his old phone. 

_RIP. She served me well_

Almost immediately, his phone lights up and makes one of those annoying notification sounds.

_You’re not a bad person for letting other people do nice things for you xx_

He nearly has a heart attack. Like, he’s in shock, for a second, staring at the image she sent him attached to the text. He checks once, then again, to see if she didn’t accidentally mean to send it to _anyone_ else, really. But the message is definitely for him, and there’s definitely two very nice things looking back at him, which she implied in the very same message, written out to him. 

The photo is of Clarke, obviously, just in a dark blue bralette, because of course it’s blue, one arm banded right below her breasts, the other holding the phone up above her. There’s enough of her face on it for him to see she’s biting down on her lip, beauty mark too perfect not to want to desperately kiss, bright blue eyes staring straight into his soul. Bellamy can feel himself hardening at the sight, just staring at it for a full minute, but manages to keep his cool. He reminds himself he has game. 

_These things are way too nice._

_I know because I’ve seen you looking._

_Clarke_ , he sends, not even sure what he’s going to say. His fingers hover over the keyboard as he tries to swallow away the lump in his throat. God, he’s so incredibly fucking fucked. 

In the end, it’s much easier to pretend none of this implies what it actually does. They’re good at that, lingering in the unknown, not acknowledging but talking around, the barely but not quite yet area. The inbetween. 

Before he knows it, she’s shot off a reply. 

_Isn’t it so much better in HD?_

_Is this you making a move?_

_No, I’m just trying to make a point. Get you to enjoy all the phone’s features completely and all._

It happens more frequently. Like when he’s on a jog. His phone buzzing because of a picture of Clarke, in a bed, propped up on her elbow, sheets barely covering anything, absolutely killing him. On the couch, sitting beside his teenage sister, stiffening and hiding the phone from her view because Clarke is staring back at him through a mirror, wet from a shower, just in a towel. Or, at work.

_Me, not making a move._

Bellamy’s too busy staring at Photo Clarke, in front of a mirror, bath robe slipping enough down her shoulder to reveal a lacy black bra, and trying not to choke on his own saliva, that he doesn’t even notice someone walking up to the counter and clearing their throat. 

Lexa fishes the phone from his hands, and for the first time since he’s known her something in her voice betrays her. “She’s sent you nudes?”

“They’re not nudes,” he mutters, lamely, reaching to get the phone back. Miller called them thirst traps. Besides, they’re doing this whole aggressive flirting without mentioning it’s actually flirting. He makes some quip about her being photogenic, and she sends him a half-naked snap asking him if her eyes look good from this angle. It’s a whole thing.

Lexa’s hand tightens around the phone, green eyes circled with thick black liner blinking at him as if trying to process something rapidly. Finally, she reluctantly reaches the conclusion, “She really likes you.”

He’s not sure what to say. That was the plan, wasn’t it? But he and Lexa both know it’s more than that now, that Clarke is more than that to him. So finally he settles on a quiet, “I hope so.”

For a second there’s an expression he can’t read on her face, something dark and furious, and then it fades into something softer, although it seems almost mechanical, practiced. “It doesn’t seem, right, does it?” 

He shakes his head, and then Lexa sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, sliding the phone over the counter towards him. Maybe she really does still carry a soft spot for Clarke. “I think our mutual agreement has reached it’s natural conclusion.”

“Probably.” There’s a pause, the unsaid lingering between them. Bellamy can’t help himself from asking, “What about Finn and Niylah?”

Her nostrils flare slightly, and then she shakes her head lightly, schooling her expression into something calmer. “Leave them to me.”

He searches her face, but she’s not giving anything away for free. He forces his voice to sound confident, unbothered, even if he’s anything but. “Are you going to tell her?”

There’s a moment of silence as she assesses him, then she lets out a tired sigh, obviously lost in a memory. “Do you know Clarke always told me she hated clingy people, almost as much as she hated PDA? It was fine with me, I’m not a particularly tactile person anyway--” _You don’t say._ Lexa purses her lips brief, disdained almost, her eyes narrowing. “But yesterday I saw you two, and you were hugging.”

It’s practically all they do at this point, but that’s what friends do. That’s what throws her off? Not the not nudes? Bellamy frowns. “So what?”

“She’s different with you,” she acknowledges, as if it pains her to say it. She clears her throat, guilt flashing in front of her eyes for just a moment. “I want her to be happy.”

He doesn’t know they’re supposed to be correlated, or if this is Lexa’s weird way of giving him her blessing. Bellamy lets out a huff, tinted with mirthless laughter. “You got a funny way of showing it.”

She cocks a brow, sounding unphased. “Let’s not pretend you have any moral high ground here.”

He tilts his head, relenting. “Fair enough.”

She offers him her hand, and his eyebrows jump, staring at it. It seems sort of anticlimactic, weirdly, he thinks, as he stares at her long, boney fingers. “So it’s over?”

Lexa nods as he takes her hand, “It’s over.”

Strangely enough, the thing that makes it truly hit is the notification on his phone.

_ THE THREE DICKETEERS  _

_You can’t send messages to this group because you’re no longer a participant._

  
  


* * *

Clarke had class, so he’s surprised to find her poking him the side as she skids up beside him, walking down the courtyard. “You seem happy.”

“I am,” he answers, returning her smile. For the first time in months, he feels like he can breathe a little easier. Like maybe he didn’t royally screw up the best thing in his life. Of course he’ll need to come clean, but at least he can do it in a more controlled setting, try and show her he never had ill intentions, and hope for forgiveness. 

“Good.” She falls into step with him, shouldering her tote up higher. “Wanna crash a frat-party with me tonight?”

He sends her a pointed look, eyebrows raised. She doesn’t even like crowds. “You’re miserable at frat-parties.”

She elbows him in the ribs, although agreeing, “I _am_ , but there’s free booze--” Clarke bites down on her lip, pushing some hair behind her ear as she shamelessly looks him dead in the eye, “ _and_ the perfect opportunity for you to finally attend a live photoshoot.”

Bellamy scoffs, mockingly, even if his heart stutters in his chest. “Jesus, you’re not even going to take me out to dinner first?” He’s unable to suppress a grin, not sure how after all this yearning it could be as simple as this. “Some Taylor Swift, candlelights? Is romance really dead?”

The corners of her mouth turn up, eyes gleaming. “I’ll treat you to a happy meal after.”

“Classy girl,” Bellamy comments with half a chuckle, coming to a halt in front of the library, checking his watch. He squeezes her hand briefly, a promise. “My break’s over, but I’ll see you tonight, okay? Just text me and let me know what frat dump to show up to.”

“It’s a date.”

* * *

“Okay, what about him?”

Bellamy takes another gulp of his shitty beer, looking over at some guy in the corner over the rim of his red solo cup, leaning back against the counter, free hand gripping it behind him to support his weight. “Barely a four.”

“Really?” Clarke purses her lips, looking over at the guy again as she lets out a pensive huff. Her hairs down, two strands on each side pulled back so he has a good look at her face every time he glances over at her. She shrugs a little, scrunching up her nose. “He seems cute.”

“He’s wearing Khaki shorts,” he opposes, halfway offended, motioning at the guy’s general direction with his cup, some beer almost swishing over the rim. “He looks like he plays water polo.”

She shrugs again, shaking her head lightly. “Finn plays water polo.”

“Exactly,” he concludes, a smirk starting to form on his mouth as he jostles her with his elbow. “We all know _you_ ’d fuck anyone, but some of us have standards.”

Her jaw drops, mock offended, although she’s trying to keep from laughing. “He has nice hair,” she defends herself, lamely, mostly as an after-thought, raising her eyebrows when Bellamy sends her a pointed look. It’s quiet for a moment as she folds her free hand into the crook of her opposite elbow, sipping from her drink as she stares out at the crowd. There’s just the beat of some Charli XCX song playing, the hubbub of people talking and playing drinking games. Her smile doesn’t leave her face, but it dampens, just a bit. “You know, I like sex.”

He snorts, dry. “You don’t say.”

“I mean,” Clarke corrects, emphatically, throwing him a heatless glare, “Obviously I _like_ it, but I mean -- after losing my dad, and then Wells --” She pushes out a frustrated sigh, “I kind of shut down. I didn’t ever want to feel that kind of pain again. So it made me feel powerful, to have that kind of intimacy and not get lost in it. I convinced myself it made me strong, in control.” She licks her lips, and there’s the hint of her lifting her shoulder, a darker look in her eye than before. “And usually, that’s true. It makes me feel good, for a little while.”

Bellamy understands, but it’s not like she ever owned him an explanation. Are there better coping mechanisms out there? Definitely. But anyone who blames her for enjoying a natural human act is a piece of shit. Was he jealous out of his mind every time he was forced to acknowledge anyone else has ever touched her like that? Absolutely. Neither of those things are mutually exclusive. 

He makes a curious sound in the back of his throat, teasing her slightly. “I just did it because I like sex. Kinda sucks you need a reason and I can just be a regular whore, huh?”

“Yeah,” Clarke agrees, sort of wistful, before her smile grows, leaning more of her weight against him, shoulders pressed together. “But at least I don’t have twelve untreated STDs.”

“Rude,” he counters, downing the last of his drink. He squints, thoughtfully. “Besides, I only have like three max.”

She’s still half-giggling when she turns her head to look up at him, giving him a coy smirk. “I brought condoms so we’re good to go.”

Halfway able to suppress a strained sound, Bellamy laughs, mostly because he needs to get rid of some of the tension in his body and also because this weird mix of dread and excitement is spilling from the seams of his body, and she joins him, beaming up at him. His heart squeezes at the sight, and he realizes he’s never felt this way about anyone else before. It’s a little frightening and exhilarating at the same time.

“Can I borrow a phone? Mine died and I need a ride,” Lexa announces her presence, looking Clarke dead in the eye and ignoring his existence completely. Their laughter dies off immediately. A strange tension hangs in the air between the three of them, making him feel incredibly uncomfortable and on edge. What is she even doing here? Did she see Clarke have fun and change her mind?

Clarke doesn’t budge, just sends the other girl a weird look, and since Bellamy would prefer for this entire conversation to be over as fast as possible, he just fishes his from his back pocket and hands it to her. 

She taps at the screen for a moment, ordering an Uber or whatever probably, then flips the phone in her hand, holding it out for him. He’s apparently too slow when reaching for it, because she thrusts it forward again, cocking an eyebrow. He finally takes it from her, and there’s a short, perfunctory “ _Blake_ ” with a nod of her head. Then it’s seconds before she’s elbowing her way back into the crowd again, disappearing from view.

Bellamy whistles lowly. “She’s so--” He searches for the right, non-offensive words, rubbing the back of his neck. “--intense. You really dodged a bullet breaking up with her.”

“ _She_ dumped _me_ ,” Clarke corrects him, taking a sip of her drink, swallowing slowly. Bellamy’s eyebrows jump, but now that he thinks about it, Lexa never said Clarke ended things. Bitter, but like it’s old, she continues, “Out of nowhere. Stood me up at a fucking Apple Bees of all places, on my birthday. Then unblocked me just to text me her education came first, that I was a distraction. A weakness.”

“Oh,” he just sort of stammers, dumbly, mind going into overdrive.

She throws back her drink, taking a swig. An incredulous laugh spills from her lips, “And then she had the audacity to get mad at me for hooking up with Finn a day after she ruined my birthday.”

He swallows tightly, looking off to the side before glancing back over at her. He’d really hoped he’d get a quiet moment alone with her tonight, but after winning a game of beer pong against her friend Monty and _his_ weird hyperactive friend and coming here for refreshments only to run into her ex, it doesn’t seem to be one of those nights. He’s got to make it happen himself, it seems. “About that--”

“Hey, I want to show you something,” Clarke interrupts him, eyes gleaming as she takes his empty cup from him, placing it on the counter behind them along with hers. 

He just nods, mute, his throat dry as she wipes the condensation on her palm off on the back of her jeans before taking his hand in hers, pulling him along through the mass of drunk students and leading him up the stairs. Bellamy’s not entirely sure what he was expecting from a frat house, or if he might have actually been hoping she’d take him out stargazing on the roof, but the relatively cleanest bedroom probably should have been his first guess. 

Clarke smiles at him, promising, squeezing her fingers around his as she tugs him inside of the room. His heartbeat speeds up significantly, even when she explicitly told him she was planning on having sex with him, so he’s not sure why he’s still reeling from the implications of all of this. He remembers Lexa telling him about Clarke’s masks, and how she slept with someone else without telling him about it, and then maybe half of him really does still expect her to pull out a camera and ask him to snap pictures for her new, solo Tinder account. 

“ _I want to show you something_. Has this pick-up line seriously ever worked for you?” Bellamy snorts, and when he turns back from locking the door, Clarke is already shirtless, sitting on top of the bed. 

He almost has a stroke, taking it all in for the first time. She’s wearing the kind of bra one wouldn’t expect a girl like Clarke to wear beneath a simple white tank and an oversized white-blue plaid. It’s bright red, and lacey, and has all kinds of intricate straps and little diamonds lining the fabric.

“I _did_ have something to show you,” she says, matter-of-factly, batting her eyelashes up at him. Bellamy nostrils flare, trying to keep it together. Her smirk grows, opening her jean-clad knees a little wider, almost as if it’s an invitation. “Well, what do you think?”

He opens his mouth, inhaling before shutting it again, closing the distance in between them as he tries to process the ethereal vision sitting right in front of him. He’s definitely thinking with his dick right now, but he’s also thinking stupid, dangerous shit like, _fucking gorgeous_ , and _she looks like an angel_ , and _I might actually marry this girl_. Very stupid, dangerous shit.

“My phone didn’t do them justice,” Bellamy admits, hoarsely, running his finger along the strap covering her shoulder. Her skin is soft, smooth, and he doesn’t deserve her, not like this, not in any other way. Her fingers come up to cover his, her smile radiant, and his eyes flash with guilt. “Clarke,” he rasps, desperate, “I’m not who you think I am.”

“Yes. _Yes_ , you are,” she urges, insistent, her brows furrowing together as she watches the look on his face, seeing how he doesn’t believe it. He finds her pushing herself off the bed, reaching up to cup his face with both of her tiny hands, pressing her forehead against his. “I know you.”

He finds her blue pleading eyes, frowning as he searches them, as he finds nothing but belief, belief and trust and admiration in and for him. It makes him feel understood, and accepted, for maybe the very first time in his life. _She_ does, all the good and the bad she’s choosing _him_ , makes him feel like he’s all the things he always thought he was too unworthy of, most of all _wanted_ , and it makes him selfish, and greedy, and all the many worst parts of himself. 

His neck hurts from the angle it’s craning down in, and he might hate himself forever because of this, for allowing this, but none of it matters as she leans closer, lips ghosting over his as they breathe in the same air. “I know you, okay?” She whispers, almost reverently, tips of her fingers digging into his face as if to ground him to this moment. He starts to nod, but then their lips are already being crushed together. 

He tightens his hold on her waist, his free hand coming up to grip the back of her neck, leaning even further down, lips like a magnet to hers.

Clarke moans into his mouth as he deepens the kiss, and it’s dizzying how perfect she feels against him, her soft lips, her warm body. Her knees hit the back of the bed, and she starts to lower herself, Bellamy supporting his weight with his hand as not to crush her as he follows her down. 

His hand roams up and down her side, her stomach, her arm and collarbone, exploring her smooth skin, and her arm curls around the back of his shoulders, urging him closer. It’s gentle but controlling and consuming at the same time, the way they move together. His lips lighten on hers, their foreheads pressed together as he blinks opens his eyes slowly. He smiles gently, running the thumb of the hand still wrapped around her neck over her pink, swollen bottom lip. His breath is hot on her face. “This okay?”

“Do me a favor?” Clarke starts, starting to tug his shirt over his head. He helps her, throwing it off somewhere to the side as he looks down at her expectantly. She quirks an eyebrow, scraping her nails down his chest softly before sliding her flat palms from his ribs to his back, coaxing him closer. 

“Anything.”

Her eyes glint with something dangerous and breathtaking at the same time, his whole body growing hot. “Don’t be a gentleman.”

Instead of answering, he ducks his head to fit his mouth over hers again, one hand moving down between them to pop open the button of her jeans. He starts kissing down her face, nipping at her jaw briefly before moving down her neck. Simultaneously, he remembers his silent promise, his fingers dip underneath the band of her underwear, meeting her folds, warm and wanting, slick like velvet.

She whines at his touch, hand weaving into the curls at the back of his head to pull his face back up to her mouth, needing more. His free hand slides up her smooth stomach, raising it to her breast, palming one of them in his grip. As soon as he squeezes, he bites harder into her lip, enjoying the little sounds she’s making as he works her up. 

Bellamy pulls back enough to look at her, removing his hand from her panties to rest them low on her pubic pone, fingers wet against her skin. He gazes down at her, her wide eyes and parted lips, that little beauty mark, her strained neck from frustration, blonde hair spilling around her head like waves of spun gold, her heaving breasts, practically spilling from the top of her red bra. _Fuck._ What he would give to bury his face in them and stay there forever. It’s dizzying how much he wants her. 

“What’s taking you so long?” She wonders, impatiently, maybe even a little brattily. 

He grins, stupid. “Trying to commit this image to memory.”

“You have enough _real_ images,” Clarke insists, eye-roll implied, squirming below him as she reaches for his belt, starting to unbuckle it. “Just touch me already.”

“Needy princess,” Bellamy chuckles softly, stilling her eager hands before laying them down on the mattress beside her, hooking his thumb around the top of her jeans to start to pull them down. 

Clarke moves to help him, lifting her hips so they can push them further down. He moves off her briefly so she can unhook them from her ankles, tugging a condom from her pocket before chucking the clothes off to the side. 

“You weren’t kidding,” he chuckles, watching as she puts the prophylactic down beside her before reaching behind her back to start unhooking her bra. He watches her every move intently. 

“In case me sending you suggestive nudes for the past month wasn’t clear enough,” Clarke counters, pulling the straps down her shoulders as she gives him a pointed look, that turns smug fast because of the look on his face as she flicks the bra aside completely. “I need you to fuck me, Bellamy.”

He grunts, crushing his mouth to hers briefly before moving down to her chest, wrapping one of them in his hold, and using his mouth onto the neglected breast. Her back arches, pressing closer, as he licks over the hardened peak, rolling the other between his thumb and index finger before groping the full flesh with the rest of his hand roughly. For a moment, he continues like this, worshipping them with equal amounts of attention and relishing in how responsive her body is to his every touch, before he feels her grow impatient beneath him. 

His fingers ghost back down her stomach and hip before moving to the centre of her thighs, slipping them back in between her folds. She grips his arm, nails biting into his skin, as he kisses along her jaw, nosing down her neck as he inhales her sweet scent. 

She’s warm and soft under his touch, only stiffening for a second as he pushes two fingers inside of her at once. A soft gasp escapes her parted lips as his thumb brushes over her clit, before her teeth sink down into her lip. He pulls back to look at her, the fluttering of her eyelashes and the flush high on her cheeks, before he does it again, making her buck up against his hand.

He fucks her with his fingers, setting a merciless pace. Once she’s wet enough, he pushes another digit inside of her, her walls clenching around him. Using his thumb to work her swollen nerve at the same time, his lips move over hers as she gasps and squirms, nails leaving red welts in his forearm. She looks and sounds so incredibly sexy, he’s not sure he’s ever been this hard before.

“Oh, fuck,” she curses against his mouth, whole body growing tight before she crashes down, crying out his name as she straggles for breath. He presses his mouth against hers, kissing her through it. Pulling his fingers from her, she hisses into his mouth, stroking his back while they kiss, eventually slowing down. 

Once she starts fumbling with his belt again, he knows she’s ready for more. He rolls off her, laying on his back so he can lift his hips and push his jeans and boxers down his legs. Clarke blindly reaches for the condom on the bed beside her, propping herself up on her elbow as she tears open the wrapper with her teeth. 

Bellamy presses his head back into the mattress as she wraps her small hand around him, stroking him a few times -- although it’s far from necessary by the way he’s already rock-hard -- before using her other hand to roll the condom on. She swings one knee over his thighs, telling him, “Next time I wanna get my mouth on you.”

“Me too,” he promises, squeezing the flesh of where her ass meets her hip as she moves further up his body. Maneuvering her hand in between them, the other steadying her, she holds his dick into place, flat against his stomach, as she slides her slit up and down his hardness. They both curse, Clarke still sensitive from before and Bellamy close to coming right here and now.

Once she’s smirking happily at the way she’s teased him to the point where he’s squeezing his eyes shut, cheeks flushed with the exertion of holding back and fingers digging into her hips hard enough to leave marks, she lifts up slightly, guiding his cock to her centre. 

Bellamy can swear he tastes heaven as she sinks down on top of him, taking him inch by inch until her cunt’s flush against his pubic bone. She’s so wet, so tight, it’s killing him. Once they both catch their breaths a little, she starts riding him in earnest, more circle eights than up and down movements, but somehow that makes it even better. 

Throwing her head back, she lets out a small squeak as the head of his dick bumps into her cervix with every push of her hips. He wets one of his thumbs with his tongue, using it to roll her nipple. Clarke lifts her head back up, meeting his dark gaze through hooded eyelids, and _fuck_ , his hips stutter against her. 

She bends down to meet him for a kiss, continuing to rotate her hips as both his hands land on her ass, guiding her. This angle stops her from taking him as deep as before, but it’s almost better, more sensitive like this, with their mouths touching, too lost in sensation to even really be kissing, just breathing into each other.

“I’m close,” she pants into him, breaking away to lean her forehead against his collarbone. He cups the back of her head as she flips them over, knowing just what she needs. 

A small gasp spills from her lips as he presses deeper into her, driving in and out of her roughly as he pins both of her hands to the bed beside her head. His entire body is slick with sweat, an indescribable heat moving through his veins, every nerve-ending prickling with need. Their faces close, breathing heavily against each other with every thrust. 

Her mouth falls open as he presses into her harder, pubic bone stimulating her clit enough to finally make her fall apart, fingers tightening between his. She clenches around him, body arching and slackening beneath him and before he knows it, he’s following right behind her, over the edge, spilling inside of the condom. 

Clarke finds his mouth after a moment, lips moving together lazily while they still catch their breath. He lets off her hands so she can weave them into his hair, pulling him closer until their kisses eventually slow, just little soft, affectionate pecks now. He lifts himself onto his elbows so he can comb away her hair from her damp face with one hand, before rising up onto his hands completely. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs preemptively, as he starts to pull out of her. She only hisses a little, and he gets rid of the condom in a trashcan by the door quickly. He supposes it’ll hardly be the worst thing whatever frat boy occupies this room has ever put in there. 

Clarke is still half-passed out on top of the bed, her chest heaving and her eyes closed. He stares at her for just a second before deciding that’s probably creepy and crawls back into the bed instead. For a moment he wonders if it’s going to be awkward now, but then her hand brushes his where it’s laying in between them and she intertwines their fingers. 

He turns on his side, pressing close and swinging his other arm around her waist. “You okay?”

She blinks open her eyes slowly, layer of sweat still covering her forehead, giving him a dazed smile. She must finally find the strength to move, turning on her side as well with a small groan. She nuzzles his collarbone lazily, slotting her leg in between his. “Fine.”

He kisses her forehead. “I’ll take your inability to form a full sentence as a compliment.”

She laughs softly, pressing her cheek against his chest. The hand holding hers is numb at this point, but he doesn’t care. It’s quiet for a few long moments. Then, dreadfully, she sighs, “I’ll have to go pee at one point.”

His fingers trace her spine absentmindedly. “I’ll come with you.”

“Are we really doing the clingy, co-dependent thing now where we can’t even go on bathroom breaks without each-other?”

Bellamy snorts, not at all joking. “You can go on a private bathroom break when we’re not in a frat house full of assholes wanting to get laid.”

She pulls back from his chest just enough so she can see his face, one of her eyebrows slightly quirked. “Any preference on what bathroom?”

“Are you inviting yourself back to my place?” He struggles to hide a grin. 

Clarke pushes herself up on her elbow, cupping his chin with her index finger and thumb briefly. She opens her mouth, inhaling sharply before pausing for another moment. Finally, staring at a point on his neck, she says, “I want to do the clingy, co-dependent thing. With you.”

“Jesus,” he laughs loudly, pulling her back into his chest, resting his chin on top of her head. “You really weren’t kidding when you said you’re bad at relationships.”

“Fuck off,” she mumbles against his shoulder. 

“Seems like we’ve come full circle.”

She pinches his ribs, leaning her head back again. Sending him a deathglare, she bristles, “You want to be my fucking boyfriend or not?”

He smirks. “Not with that attitude.” 

She groans loudly, rolling off him completely and crossing her arms over her chest. He shifts, nosing at her cheek until her forehead starts to unwrinkle, pressing a kiss to her cheek as he rubs her arm. “You want to be my girlfriend?”

“I didn’t fuck you for no reason,” Clarke snaps back at him, but the heat leaves her as she catches his eye, the increduble look in it, deflating. “I mean, specifically you, in this moment. It wasn’t about my weird complex, it was about you.” Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, one of her hands coming up to run through the front of her hair. “It meant something.”

He presses another kiss to her cheek, lips moving against her skin as he counters, “Really? I was just crossing you off my bingo card under ‘member of the LGTB community’.”

She turns her head, which makes them practically nose to nose, narrowing her eyes at him. “This non-existent peeing contest you’re in with Roan is getting tiresome. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know you exist. People who serve no purpose to him are invisible to him.”

Bellamy huffs, pulling back a little so he’s not going cross-eyed looking at her. “He will once we go Facebook official.”

“Facebook official, huh?” She echoes, looking unimpressed as she grips the forearm of the arm slung across her waist. “I don’t think he even has Facebook. You’ll have more luck proving your alpha status on Instagram.”

He smiles, dumbly, looking at her. She’s so fucking beautiful, it hurts. “I --” He swallows the words down just in time, instead pulling himself together and settling on, “I really like you.” 

“I hope so, considering you’re my boyfriend now,” she answers, stifling a yawn.

His eyebrows jump. “I never said yes.”

“You don’t have to,” Clarke states, simply. “I decided for you.”

He rolls further on top of her, kissing her deep and long. “Let’s go find you a bathroom so we can go home.”

* * *

Things seemed too good to be true, and if he’s learned anything in life, it’s that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

It all -- _everything_ \-- becomes clear to him during one particular, momentous moment. 

Clarke’s nudes leak. Now he could write an entire essay about how they’re technically not actually nudes, and how fucking sexist it is that it’s even a big deal to start with, but the truth very much is that she’s half-naked in them and the people at school sending them around and meme-ing them, calling her a whore and other unrepeatable offenses, probably never cared about fourth-wave feminism to start with. 

It wasn’t Clarke, and it definitely wasn’t him. He didn’t share the pictures with anyone either. Sick to his stomach, his entire world spinning on its axis, slowly, memories start to recur to him, fitting together like pieces of a puzzle. 

_She dumped me._ The betrayal in Lexa’s voice when she found out about the pictures. The strange look on her face as she shook his hand, calling off the deal. _You’re worth nothing to her._ Clarke, hesitating too long so Bellamy gave Lexa his phone instead, something, in hindsight, she must’ve been counting on. _She could never be with someone like you in the long run._ Who was she trying to convince? Him or herself?

The plan was never payback. The plan was for him to break Clarke’s heart so she could sweep in and pick up the pieces. She knew Clarke would never forgive her for what she’d done, unless she was vulnerable and upset, hurt worse than she’d ever been by Lexa. 

That, and he’s in love with Clarke. In love with this beautiful, brilliant, broken girl who won’t ever forgive him for this. Deep down, he already knew, but once he finally allows himself to admit it, it hurts even worse.

She won’t even speak to him. Goes completely dark on him, cutting off all communication and not even bothering to show up to campus on the day of the leaks. Now he’s not so narcissistic to think that was solely because she didn’t want to see him, but he knows that if she still trusted him, she would’ve found a way to come to the library to see him. 

Bellamy tries everything. He even goes to her dorm, but her roommate tells him she hasn’t been there in days. He doesn’t know where her mom lives, or how to contact her outside of texts or social media. He tries email again, but even that is no use.

Of course she can’t stop showing up to classes completely, not if she wants to graduate with her 3.9 GPA, so he gets Miller to cover one of his shifts and after three days finally finds her walking down the courtyard, head down.

Bellamy grabs her elbow, and she jerks away from him, pulling her earphones from her ears by yanking on the cord. The contempt flashing across her eyes makes him take a step back.

“I didn’t do it,” he tries, and his voice sounds like it’s coming from miles away. “You have to believe me.”

“I did!” Clarke spits, shoving him in the chest. He barely moves, just stands there, taking it. “I believed you when every fucking cell in my body told me not to, that I would just get hurt again.” Her eyes narrow, her lip curling. “I believed you when you said that you liked me, that I was good--”

“You are,” he breaks her off, running a hand through his hair out of frustration. He gets why she thinks none of it was real, and he doesn’t know where to start to try and convince her it was. “ _God_ , Clarke you are. I do like you. It wasn’t me--”

“I don’t give a fuck about the pictures, Bellamy!” She snaps, as if aggravated with him for not getting the point, fingers tightening around the strap of her tote. “I don’t care what these people think of me. I cared what _you_ thought of me, but apparently it wasn’t much --”

He takes a good look at her, at the bags under her eyes, and how wavy and unstraightened her hair looks, the wrinkles in her shirt. It pains him, to see her like this. Unsettles him with worry. Even if he can’t fix any of this, can’t fix the pictures or what he broke between them, he needs her to know. His voice trembles with defeat, fingers curling into fists and uncurling again, “You know I think the world of you.”

“None of that means shit when you’ve been lying to me since the start,” she counters, looking him up and down spitefully. She’s never looked at him like _this_ , not even at the beginning when they hated each other. It cracks something wide open in the middle of his chest, bleeding with a helpless kind of agony. “Sure is a nice line though.”

Bellamy shakes his head a little, stops her when she tries to push past him again, hands on her biceps. “I know it doesn’t. I’m not here for forgiveness, I hardly deserve it.” He pulls his hands back, dropping them limply at his sides. He looks away, and then back at her, feels a sharp stab in his heart. “I just -- I’m worried, and I don’t think you should be alone right now--”

“Cut the shit, Bellamy,” she interrupts him, seething for an entirely different reason now. “Lexa came to talk to me. This entire time you were what? Working with her?”

“Them,” he corrects her, numb. He’s hardly surprised Lexa tried to come pick the fruits of labor. He was stupid enough to fall for it, too. “Finn. And Niylah, too.”

She huffs, laced with mirthless laughter. “This has to be a big fucking cosmic joke.”

He has to explain. It’s all semantics in the end, but he can’t walk away from her right now having her believe it was all fake. Not when it never was. Not when he’s never been a part of something so real. “Clarke, can you please just listen to me for one second?”

“Fuck off,” she bristles, meeting his gaze directly, not looking away for a single word as her jaw flexes. All he finds there is a cold kind of resentment, settling deep in his bones, making him realize maybe there’s nothing left to save. “And know that I mean it this time.”

“I love you,” he flinches. He’s not sure what came over him. She freezes. 

Clarke stares at him for a moment, hard, but he can tell his confession is chipping away at her armor. For a second, there’s something coveting and vulnerable in her gaze. Making him believe that, maybe, he still has a chance to turn this around, to convince her that this is the only truth that matters. He opens his mouth, and then there’s Finn, his hand wrapping around his elbow. “She wants you to leave her alone, dude.”

Not this fucking clown. Bellamy rips his arm from his grip, seething, “Mind your fucking business.” 

He needs to at least know she’s okay, but her mask is already slipping back into place, gladly taking this as an opportunity to keep walking, Finn blocking his path when he tries to follow her. There’s barely a struggle, Bellamy way too occupied with finding out what way Clarke is going to see the punch to his jaw coming.

_What the fuck._

“That’s what you get for fucking my girlfriend,” Finn spits, thinking he’s actually done something here.

“She’s not your fucking girlfriend,” he barks back, hand covering the edge of his jaw, other one balled into a fist to keep from punching his lights out. Instead, praying for a miracle in which this imbecile realizes what’s actually going on here, namely Lexa playing a dirty game, “How did you even find out?”

He scoffs, flicking his head so the strand of hair that fell out of place _suckerpunching_ him moves away from his eyes. “Lexa saw you two, sneaking off--”

Bellamy shakes his head angrily, cutting him off. “Don’t you see she’s manipulating you?”

For a flash, there’s doubt on Finn’s face, the hint of disbelief. Then it fades, and he’s back to being a willfully ignorant douche, grabbing onto the front of Bellamy’s shirt, “You know what you did, you filthy lowlife piece of shit--”

Fury overrules every shred of common sense in his body, and before he punches him back, Bellamy shoves him off instead, stalking towards the faculty parking lot. 

He drives around for what could be hours, no particular destination in mind. Knuckles white from his grip on the steering wheel. It’s not even about him. He doesn’t give fuck all about how _he_ feels. It’s about Clarke, about how she probably thinks the whole world is against her right now, nobody looking out for her. He wishes he could do something about that. Then his phone buzzes, and he finds his heart jump in hopeful anticipation. He deflates as he sees the notification, _it’s not her_ , but something makes him click it anyway.

_: I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear from, but I just saw Clarke going into her dorm building and she looked upset. I think she needs you._

A follow up message, _I’m sorry. I never meant for it to go this way._

Clarke is in the hallways, quietly pulling flyers off the walls leading up to her dorm room. He takes one down himself, staring at the picture of Clarke in front of a bathroom mirror, except it’s edited, as if someone wrote ‘ _whore_ ’ on it with red lipstick.

When she notices him, her fingers tighten on the stack of papers in her hand briefly before there’s just a quiet, resigned sigh. “My roommate’s out, come on,” she tells him, nudging her head down the hall. 

Clarke waits by the door for him to come inside, eyes cast off to the side as he passes her, closing it behind him. He sits down on her desk chair and Clarke takes a seat on her bed. 

He’s not sure where to start, but he desperately wants to go back to the way it was before, desperately wants to be her friend again, so he pretends they still are. “I got fired for ‘fighting a student’, so I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do now.”

Indignation flashes across her eyes. “If you came here for a sympathy pat on the back--”

“Of course not,” he bites back, bitterly, not really sure how she can’t _see_ the real reason he’s here. They didn’t need words to understand each other before. “I don’t give a damn about my job, Clarke. What I care about is you being mad at me.”

She nods, after a second, slowly, looking off to the side again. There’s a blank look on her face as a silence wraps around them. It’s a while before she speaks. “You were the first person in a long time who made me feel like I was worth something. You looked at me and saw possibilities instead of all the mistakes I’ve made. You made me feel like I was deserving of good things, that I wasn’t weak for wanting that for myself too.”

Bellamy slides forward on the chair, reluctant, opening and closing his mouth soundlessly. Then, he starts, “I know I hurt you, and I can’t take that back. They came to me when I didn’t know you and offered me money. _A lot_ of money, not that it makes a difference.” He shakes his head to himself, not daring to look at her right now. If she -- he’s not sure he could continue if he does. “It was easy at first, because you didn’t like me, and didn’t make a secret out of that either, but then we became friends. And it became real.” It became so real, it aches deeply just to breathe right now. He inhales sharply, scrubbing a hand over his face. “And every time I tried to tell you...”

Resigned, she fills in, completely frozen, “I cut you off.” Her face is blank, unreadable, arms hugging herself. 

“Some of those times, yeah.” He smiles, mirthless, face flinching for a second as he curses himself inwardly. “Other times I was too much of a coward. I was afraid -- of this.”

Clarke swallows tightly, at least giving him something, “Every time you got that look on your face I could tell you had something to tell me. I thought you were going to say you loved me or something, and I didn’t want to hear it. I wasn’t ready.”

“Well, in a way,” he starts, softly, putting his hands flat on his thighs as he lifts one of his shoulders, “If I loved you less it would’ve been easier to confess to all of it.”

When he finally dares to look up at her, she’s silently wiping at a tear rolling down her cheek. His stomach churns, wanting nothing more but to wrap her in his arms and offer her some comfort. But he can’t, because he lost the right to do that. So Bellamy finds himself pleading, docile, “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but you’re my best friend and I need to know you’re going to be okay.”

She swallows, her bottom lip trembling as she inhales shakily. “I thought I didn’t care, but -- this is the worst, I feel like my body was taken from me and violated. I feel like, everybody hates me.” Her eyes flick up to the ceiling, glazing over. “I am mortified, but -- I’ll be fine. I have to be.”

“You don’t have to be,” he insists, and without thinking, moves over to the bed, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. She immediately turns her head into his shoulder, entire body shaking with silent sobs. He rubs her back, placing a kiss on the crown of her head, his voice rough, “You don’t have to be fine, okay?”

“I thought I was stronger, you know?” She sniffs into his shoulder, tears leaving a wet patch on his shirt. Words laced with disappointment, “That I could face everyone, and pretend the names they’re calling me hold no weight. That I was above it all. I thought -- I thought I could keep from breaking.”

“Everyone breaks sometime, Clarke,” he declares, tightening his arms around her. He hates she had to go through that, most of all that she went through it alone. He wants to murder anyone who had anything to do with it. “You can’t keep beating at a layer of ice with a brick stone and not expect it to crack, no matter how thick.”

She pulls back from him, giving him a pointed look even though her cheeks are still wet with tears and moisture’s still stuck to her long lashes. The tip of her nose is red, scrunching up lightly as she sniffs. “Are you calling me cold?”

“It was a metaphor,” Bellamy throws back, using the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe at her face, and instead of heat, there’s just fondness in his voice. “Maybe if you attended class every once in a while, you’d know what that is.”

She just sits there, letting him clean up her face, words still thick with emotion from earlier, although she tries to keep it lighthearted, “A girl faces one public slutshaming event with some extra harassment sprinkled on top, and apparently I never go to class. Tell my 3.9 GPA that.”

He drops his shirt, smoothing her frayed hair back from her face as his eyes soften. He looks at her for a long moment. “I’m sorry.”

Clarke presses her chapped lips together, fingers tentatively reaching up to cup the side of his head, thumb moving tenderly over the freckles covering his cheekbone. “You don’t have to think you deserve it, I forgive you anyway.”

He reels back, shaking his head as disgust swirls through his veins. Her hand drops back down into her lap. “You don’t owe me anything, Clarke.”

She licks her dry lips, casting her eyes at their feet. “I had a meeting with Thelonious, signed up to do another year here so I can get my bachelor in counseling.” 

“That’s--” He starts, trailing off, not sure why she’s telling him this right now, just knows he’s proud of her beyond reason.  


“You were the first person I wanted to tell,” she breaks him off, smiling shakily as her eyes soften. “And I couldn’t.”

“You don’t have to forgive because of that,” he protests, obvious, trying to keep it light even though he feels like dying, and it kills him even more to say it, knocking his knee against hers. “I’ll still be your friend.”

“I don’t want to be just your friend,” Clarke tells him, still sniffing even if her eyes are clearer now. Ocean blue after a storm, staring straight into his soul. “I love you too.”

His heart might actually give out any moment now. He leans down, pressing his forehead against hers. His heart constricts, overwhelmed by the depth of her eyes and the way he feels about her. Her hand comes up on his neck, lips hovering over his for a torturous second before she closes the distance between them, crushing their mouths together. _I love you too._ It’s gentle and insistent at the same time, the way their lips move together. 

Clarke pulls away, leaning her head against his shoulder for a moment before shifting to look up at him. “I have to say I admire your hustle though. Eat the rich and all.”

He rubs her waist, smirking subtly as he kisses her temple. “The only rich I want to eat--”

“Don’t,” she warns good-naturedly, swatting him in the stomach half-heartedly.

He picks his hand up from her waist and weaves it into her hair instead, scratching the back of her skull softly. “What do you want to do? Egg her car? Sabotage her future political career? Are we cutting her break lines? Fucking one of her parents? Putting bleach in her shampoo?”

She was laughing softly up until the latter mention of sabotage, quickly sobering, “That was her?”

“Do we pay someone to make her fall in love with them and then break her heart?” Bellamy continues, glossing over it as he starts combing her hair behind her ear repeatedly.

She shrugs against him, lifting her legs so she can put them over his lap, hugging her knees to her torso. “We should probably try and do better, you know.” She nods confidently. “Rise above or some shit.”

“Probably.” He lets that linger for a second, even though they both know better. “So we’re putting a flaming bag of dogshit on her doorstep?”

“No,” she laughs, knocking her shoulder blade back into his shoulder. “But I do feel like we owe that non-profit feminist magazine she was interning for this summer an email.”

Bellamy deflates. “Oh, so we’re white people-ing it.”

“Exactly.” She smiles up at him, then it fades a little at the edges as her eyes linger on his slightly bruised jaw. “What do you want to do about Finn?”

He lifts a shoulder, unphased, letting off her hair so he can lean back on both of his hands. “Just knowing I have a bigger dick than him will be enough comfort to me.”

Clarke keeps a straight face. “Who told you that?”

“Funny.”

“I forgave you, but it’s going to take a few days for me to comment on how well-or-not-so-well-endowed you are.”

“As long as it’s more endowed than him,” Bellamy insists, although she’s giving him nothing.

“Seriously though,” she asserts, pulling him back down to reality. “I could talk to Jaha?”

“Nah,” he answers, shaking his head. He doesn’t want any favors from anyone. Besides, “I’ve read about every book in that library. I was thinking I needed a change anyway.” He pauses for a second, trying to build up the courage to come out and say it. It’s hard wanting things for himself, so admitting to those things aloud feels almost traitorous. “I’ve been looking into going to trade school.” He smiles a little, looking away from her. “It’s not the Ivy League diploma you wanted for me, but I like working with my hands and I’ve always wanted to be able to build my own bookcases.”

Clarke quirks a brow, “How many bookcases does one need? Have you heard of e-books? Think of the trees, Bellamy.”

He rolls his eyes, “Well, _that_ , and I would like to build you a house one day.” He sees the way she freezes up, how her eyes widen and her jaw goes slack, and he hurries to explain it better, “A safe place somewhere reclusive where you can retreat and be alone with your thoughts. Some place no one else can touch, that’s just yours.”

It’s dead silent for a long moment. He’s starting to feel uncomfortable, dread starting to manifest in his stomach, maybe he pushed too far, too quickly --

“Oh damnit,” she curses as her eyes fill up again, and then she’s throwing her arms around his shoulder and all her weight into him, knocking him back into the mattress. Murmuring into his neck, “I only wanna be alone if you’re there with me.”

A dark chuckle rumbles his chest, and he squeezes her tight, once, before teasing her, “Seriously, not even a mention of Finn’s micropenis?”

“You don’t have anything to worry about in that department,” she promises, pushing herself up on her hands so she’s hovering above him, straddling his waist. She purses her lips in that bratty way that makes his stomach flip funnily. “Besides, he still punched you, so for that I will avenge you.”

Belamy screws his eyes shut. “Not more emails, please.”

“No, but I’ve been thinking of telling his girlfriend about us,” she answers, sounding more genuine than before. She collapses on her side next to him, meeting his eye with an amused smile, “Not because he hurt my favorite part of you, but, I mean, she deserves to know. If it hurts his little feelings in the process, so be it.”

“Doing better, the both of us.” His memory does a double-take. “My jaw is your favorite part of me?”

Clarke starts smirking slowly. “Either that or your massive monsterdick that’s definitely bigger than Finn’s.”

“And here I thought you liked me for my personality.” He grins, sliding his hand over her stomach as he turns on his side. “I’m proud of you, you know? You’re going to be a great art therapist.”

She puts her hand over his chest, patting it softly. “And any piece of wood handled by you is going to be so lucky.”

He blinks at her. “I’m still processing that.” His brow furrows together, dropping his head down as he rolls back onto his back. “Is this you telling me we’re going back to being non-exclusive?”

She rolls her eyes, lightheartedly. “You know what I mean, you do have very talented hands.” She catches one of them in her own, intertwining their fingers. “It’s going to build us our house.”

“Clingy and co-dependent, huh?”

“To the bitter end.” She smiles at him, which he returns, albeit a bit goofily. “I spent three days without you and suddenly started contemplating cutting my hair. I am not to be left alone.”

Bellamy pushes himself up into a seated position, interest piqued. “Are we talking split ends or a bob?”

She follows his lead, rising up as she holds a hand up to her ear, squinting her eyes at him. “Like, pixie cut. Maybe go redhead.”

He cringes. “Yeah, definitely welding my hip to yours. No more individual thoughts from now on.”

Her hand comes up on his cheek, thumb pressing into his chin to urge him to open his mouth under hers as she crushes her lips to his. He’s out of breath by the time she pulls away, running her finger over his bottom lip, still wet from kissing. “Thank you for accepting me.” 

He knows exactly what she means, because he feels the same. _For accepting and understanding and loving me, not in spite of all my flaws, but because of them._ He smiles, soft, pecking her mouth. “Easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

She looks smug. “Especially because of the fat wads of cash sent your way.”

“That, _and_ ,” Bellamy grins at her, boyishly, palming the side of her breast softly. Teasing, “And these.”

A small huff, and then, “Well, what are you going to do now everyone’s seen them?”

His eyes darken, tightening his grip imperceptibly. “Make sure they know only I can touch them.”

She starts breathing just a little harder, her pupils dilating just slightly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, we’ll lean into it,” he starts off seriously and then his smirk starts to grow as he watches her hang on to every word. “Go into artistic porn. Between your established fanbase and my massive monsterdick that’s definitely bigger than Finn’s we’ll be set for life.”

Clarke flicks her eyes up at the ceiling, crossing her arms over her chest, one of her legs folded beneath her ass. “Literally everybody at this school has seen Finn in a speedo, I thought you’d be more worried about Roan.”

He narrows his eyes suspiciously. “I thought you never saw his dick.”

She shrugs, cutely, looking him dead in the eye. “Well.”

“You slut,” he jokes, for which she stomps him in the side. He’s gotta teach her how to pack a punch one of these days. He raises his eyebrows. “And?”

She blinks at him, innocently. “And what?”

“You _know_.”

One of her hands covers his thigh. Mockingly, she presses, “It’s not about size, it’s an energy, Bellamy.”

He kisses her on the mouth, hard. Murmuring against her lips, “I fucking hate you, so much.”

“You were so sexy to me like twenty minutes ago, when you weren’t so insecure about the size of your dick,” Clarke tells him, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Completely serious, she adds, “It’s the size of your heart that truly matters.”

He stares at her for a moment, jaw slack. “What a line. You’re such a fuckboy.” He grins, not dropping it, “And?”

“Biggest I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re making me blush.”

Clarke blinks at him, face blank. “Wait, _what_ , I thought we were still talking about Roan?”

He grunts, “Eat my dick.”

“I can’t, I’m trying to buff up.”

He catches her eye, the little gasping smile she sends him before he’s diving on top of her, tickling and poking her sides, lowering her onto her bed until she’s gasping for breath, tears spilling from her eyes as she laughs. He finally relents once she starts hiccuping, pleading him to stop, palming both of her cheeks as he kisses her nose. “I love you. No matter what rumours anyone makes up about the width of your vagina.”

Deadpanning, “And you say _I_ have lines?”

Bellamy grins down at her. “Do you want to take a nap before you write your big momager email and break some innocent girl’s heart?”

“Definitely.” She tugs him down until he’s laying flat on the bed, resting her head on the junction between his shoulder and neck. She’s quiet for a moment before she inquires, “What do you want to do about Niylah?”

“She’s not so bad.” He shrugs, as best as he can with her half on top of him. “She actually convinced me to come over here after she saw how upset you were.”

Clarke snorts, mirthless. “It’s because she caught feelings.”

“Obviously,” he admits, reaching up to squeeze her nose until she scrunches it up, swatting him away. “No one is truly immune to your charm.”

“Fine then,” she concludes, firmly closing her eyes. “We’ll give her time for a redemption arc.”

“I think it’ll be just as easy and efficient to never think of her again.”

“I have to draw her in art class sometimes.”

“Like naked?”

Clarke snickers, eyes still closed. “Usually.”

“Isn’t it time for her retirement? Before she breaks a hip posing for you guys?”

“Don’t be an ass,” she opposes, squinting up at him. “She’s in her late thirties.”

Bellamy sends her a look. “She’s pushing fifty at the very least.”

“I was going through a mature people phase, okay? _Obviously_ \--” She insists, pointedly, gritting her teeth together briefly as she pokes him in the ribs. “I’ve moved on from that.”

“If I was any more mature than this, I would’ve never taken on a deal to break a stranger’s heart, and then think of where we would be now.”

“I think you could’ve talked to me like a normal person, no ulterior motives needed.”

“Not gonna lie, probably would’ve given up after our first encounter.”

“I thought you just were another one of those guys trying to fuck me.”

Bellamy purses his lips, trailing off, “Technically..”

“Technically nothing, Blake,” she snorts, once again rolling on top of him to straddle his hips, their hands intertwined on the mattress beside his head. Matter of factly, eyes gleaming, she informs him, as if baby-ing him, “You _love_ me. Your hands were shaking when we first kissed. I’m your last thought when you go to sleep, and the first when you wake up. You want to have my babies and build me a house and marry me in front of all your friends. Completely different ball game.”

It takes him a second to find his voice, and when he does, it sounds kind of hoarse. “You got me.”

She sends him a slow, reverent smile, warming up his chest. “I do.” He wrestles her down beside him again, and her fingers find the string of her hoodie, playing with it. “It’s the same for me. Except instead of building you a house I want to paint you all the time. Especially your hands.”

He hums, questioningly. “I thought it was my jaw that was so enticing?”

She places a soft kiss there before placing her head beneath his chin, letting go of the string to slide her hand across his waist, settling over his ribs. “Just so you know, you’re my best friend, too.”

“I’m your _only_ friend, remember?”

“What’s it like, winning by default?”

“I guess you would know, princess.”

“Exactly. I was privileged enough that my boyfriend got paid to flirt with me and lied to me about it for months.”

“Are you ever going to let it go?”

Snuggling closer, Clarke firmly closes her eyes. “Never.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> so true queen dont let me flop and leave a comment pls. i am on my knees


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